After the Southern Poverty Law Center sued it two years ago, the Palm Beach County School Board revised its policy regarding school children and the use of forced psychiatric examinations under the Florida Mental Health Law, also known as the Baker Act.

“They’ve since improved what they were doing significantly, but there was a really strong racial disproportionality in how they were using the Baker Act and they didn’t know that until we looked at it,” said Sam Boyd, SPLC staff attorney. 

The Baker Act has been used to take children from their classrooms, handcuffed and in the back of police cars, to psychiatric facilities without their parents’ input and held for up to 72 business hours. 

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