New York City's child welfare agency, the Administration for Children's Services (ACS), has agreed to pay $75,000 to a mother from the Bronx who had her newborn son removed after she legally smoked marijuana hours before giving birth. Chanetto Rivers sued the city in May, claiming that ACS targeted her because she is Black. Rivers' lawyers, the Bronx Defenders, said her case was the first to hold ACS accountable for violating a provision of New York's law legalizing marijuana that bars removing a child for a parent's marijuana use alone. A federal judge signed off last week on the agency's offer to pay Rivers. Rivers' lawyers argued that ACS pursued Rivers "not because ACS was trying to protect [her child]" but because Ms. Rivers is Black. The city's Law Department said it had "carefully reviewed the case and determined that this settlement was in the best interest of all parties.”
Jain said that while Rivers’ suit was an individual case, it offered “a model for other people who want to fight back” — both by laying out the documented history of disparate treatment of Black families by ACS, and by providing a template to challenge family separations based on marijuana use.
Rivers said in a statement released by her lawyers: “I didn’t just bring this lawsuit for myself, but for every Black family that ACS has ripped apart. They know what they did was wrong. And now, they’re on notice.”
