OIA students explore Equal Justice Initiative through book project

Jan. 13—Tenth-graders in Jennifer Richardson's English class at Owensboro Innovation Academy are learning about the Equal Justice Initiative (EJI) through a book called "Just Mercy" written by Bryan Stevenson.

Stevenson was a lawyer when he founded EJI, a nonprofit law office in Montgomery, Alabama. "Just Mercy" recounts the story of one of EJI's first clients, Walter McMillian.

McMillian was a young Black man who was given the death penalty for the murder of a young white woman that he did not commit, according to the EJI website.

On Thursday, Richardson's students had a Zoom call with Tad Roach, learning and engagement specialist for EJI.

"One of my students, Hannah Hartz, actually reached out to him over Christmas break and Tad Roach returned her email and we were able to work out something where he could speak with is today," Richardson said.

Understanding kindness and compassion is one of the reasons why Richardson wanted to have her students read and engage with the book.

"Really reaching out to people who sometimes we can overlook," she said. "I think that's really the heart of the book, that everyone, no matter where they are in life, deserves grace and mercy."

Sophomore Ashley Gledhill said she learned that it doesn't boil down to if a person is guilty or innocent, rather if it's the right of others to give a certain punishment like death row.

"If we can give these people a second chance, maybe put them in rehabilitation and see if they can be a benefit to society still," she said.

Sophomore Zamira McGhee said being quick to condemn others and being quick to see someone as not deserving of grace is the reason that there is marginalization in society.

"It's a root of a lot of the problems in America," she said. "It enlightened me on the things that need to change and the things that we need to focus on."

Sophomore Brendan Ward said his eyes were opened to how quickly people are to judge others.

"We're also quick to throw suspicion off of ourselves," he said. "Even when, in that situation, we have to see each other as equals and as people that we can relate to."

All three students said they had never given much thought to wrongfully convicted people within the justice system.

"I used to live in a very diverse area and racism and stuff like this didn't seem very prevalent," Gledhill said. "My family kind of disregarded it and I didn't really know much about this marginalization that Bryan Stevenson talks about until we started talking about it in class."

Ward said he had never given thought to if an accused person did or did not commit the crime.

"I would just look, like he said in the book, and think they're a murderer or a felon, they've done this horrible thing, that's who they are," he said ("Stevenson) says not to look at it like that, they're human, they did something wrong and they need to be punished for it, but they also need grace and understanding and mercy."

McGhee said the unit has prompted her to have conversations with her family at home.

"We have lived in the margins our entire lives so just talking about it and recognizing it, together, it's really enlightened them also on what I'm learning," she said.

Richardson said that part of what Stevenson touches on in the book is about the blindness America has toward its history.

"A problem with our American society is that we do not really acknowledge or talk about our past," she said. "It's not like if you go to Germany and there's all this reconciliation, all these icons and different statues for Holocaust victims.

We don't see those things as much here, and we're scared to have real conversations and be able to engage in a way that is different than what we see on the internet."

As part of this unit, Richardson's students will be creating podcasts where they will analyze aspects and effects of the criminal justice system, as well as analyzing and evaluating criteria for effective storytelling. The podcasts will be shared through listening services such as Spotify.

The driving question for the podcast is, "How can OIA students explore the issue of wrongful convictions in the United States to expose the flaws in the criminal justice system for Spotify users through podcasting?"

The class will be using different "true crime" podcasts as models for how the students would like to format theirs, starting with "Serial: Season One." Richardson said it will be a few months until the podcasts will be available to listen to online.