ACLU and NYCLU File Amicus Brief in Support of Father Challenging the Termination of His Parental Rights

NEW YORK — Today, the American Civil Liberties Union and the New York Civil Liberties Union (NYCLU) filed an amicus brief with the New York State Court of Appeals in support of a father’s, Mr. Z, request to challenge the termination of his parental rights. The brief argues that the foster care agency’s failure to provide diligent efforts, as required by New York State Social Services Law, left Mr. Z without the necessary tools to support his family and violated federal disability law. The brief also emphasizes the importance of addressing the intersection of race, national origin, and disability discrimination in child welfare proceedings, particularly in cases where non-English speaking parents face communication barriers.

Mr. and Mrs. Z, who have lived in the U.S. for over 30 years, had their son placed in the foster system after the Administration for Children's Services (ACS) determined that Mrs. Z posed a risk due to her schizophrenia. Yet, over the next decade, the foster care agency failed to provide Mr. Z with any counseling, educational services, or meaningful assistance to understand the nature of his wife’s mental illness and how he could continue to care for his son, and then cited Mr. Z’s lack of understanding of Mrs. Z’s mental illness as the primary reason for keeping him apart from his child.

Furthermore, despite being non-English speaking, Mr. and Mrs. Z were not provided with language interpreters throughout many critical stages of the child welfare process, and the foster care agency did not provide their son with any language classes or culturally relevant programs, placing him in four foster families who did not speak Foochow or Mandarin, for his first seven years. As their son grew older, Mr. and Mrs. Z found it increasingly challenging to communicate with him because of the language barrier.

The brief argues that the foster care agency’s failure to provide diligent efforts, as required by New York State Social Services Law, left Mr. Z without the necessary tools to support his family and violated federal disability law. Additionally, the brief emphasizes the importance of addressing the intersection of race, national origin, and disability discrimination in child welfare proceedings, particularly in cases where non-English speaking parents face communication barriers.

“This case stands as just one example of how child welfare interventions fail to help families, including the children they are supposedly designed to protect,” said Anjana Samant, senior attorney with the ACLU Women’s Rights Project. “The Administration for Children's Services removed a child shortly after his birth, and the foster care agency serving the family proceeded to sever linguistic and cultural ties, and then argue that the child’s best interests were to remain in foster care — an approach that echoes historical federal efforts to assimilate and erase Indigenous families through child removal.”

In 2022, Family Court approved a request from the foster agency to terminate Mr. Z and Mrs. Z’s parental rights. The court’s decision relied heavily on the premise that Mrs. Z posed a risk to the child due to her disability. The court also suggested that Mr. Z’s lack of “insight” into his wife’s mental illness and failure to maintain contact with the child justified the termination of his parental rights.

“Family Court has perpetuated the shameful history of preventing people with disabilities from being parents by subjecting this vulnerable family to the cruelty and trauma of family separation,” said Beth Haroules, senior staff attorney at the New York Civil Liberties Union. “Parents with disabilities, and their co-parents, have a fundamental right to parent their children, and this right must be upheld. We are confident the court will see this matter for what it is — a blatant case of child welfare discrimination based on stereotypes against people with disabilities.”

A copy of the brief can be found here.