On a summer afternoon in 2023, Michelle Fraser got an unsettling call from her daughter: A “strange man” was milling about the yard of their house in Queens. Baffled, she found a voicemail from a caseworker, who said a report of child neglect had been made against her, alleging her teenage son was not in school.
Fraser hurried back to Kew Gardens with the boy, Jacob, who has autism and epilepsy, and is unable to speak. Child protective services asked to see the children’s rooms and medical records, as Jacob, who was starting to cry, withdrew outside.
Pressed on who made the report, the caseworker let slip it was an employee of New York City’s public school system. Fraser was horrified. Just hours earlier, she had gotten into a heated argument with the city over the right school for her disabled son.
In a complaint filed in Brooklyn federal court Thursday, Fraser alleged that a Department of Education psychologist, possibly at the behest of their supervisor, called New York’s child maltreatment hotline. The case, brought by the civil rights organization Family Justice Law Center, alleges a pattern of retaliation against parents who stood up for their children, many with disabilities, then were reported by the city’s school system for child abuse or neglect.
“Literally the safety of my entire life became crashing down because two people decided they were going to — two or one, whoever made the decision — they were going to retaliate against me advocating for my child,” Fraser said during an interview with the Daily News.
The lawsuit marks a major escalation in close to a decade of personal accounts from families who allege they were similarly targeted by schools that — while mandated by law to report concerns about child maltreatment — misuse child protective services to “intimidate or coerce” parents.
“While any number of reasons may lead a teacher, administrator, or other staff member to report a parent, DOE [Department of Education] staff are reporting parents of students with disabilities in retaliation for their advocacy — to intimidate or coerce ‘difficult’ parents into dropping their concerns,” read the complaint, which was filed with Orrick, Herrington & Sutcliffe, an international law firm based in San Francisco, and Peter Romer-Friedman Law PLLC.
Fraser’s lawyers are asking a Brooklyn federal judge to find “DOE’s custom, pattern, and practice of retaliatory reporting” to the hotline unconstitutional and in violation of federal disability protections, and stop school workers from using it going forward. The family is also seeking new trainings for DOE employees and financial compensation.
Spokespeople for the city’s school system and law department did not immediately return a request for comment.
Fighting for your kid
In 2015, Jacob began attending a special education program at a Long Island YMCA. Every year, Fraser brought his case to an impartial hearing officer, where she argued local public schools couldn’t accommodate his disabilities, according to the complaint. Every year, that person agreed with her and directed the city to cover the costs of the private program.
Then in 2023, the city proposed placing Fraser’s son in a public school that offered occupational therapy, but not a service known as “Applied Behavioral Analysis” recommended by his doctors, court documents show. His placement would be at an offsite location just for children in special education; at the YMCA, Jacob learned alongside classmates both with and without disabilities.
Fraser didn’t find the school appropriate and let the city know as much. For about a month, she went back and forth with officials, who also pushed homeschool or a re-evaluation instead of the costly YMCA program.
Before a caseworker showed up at her house, emotions were running high, and talks had turned acrimonious. During the phone call that day, the Department of Education psychologist yelled at Fraser that her son “needs to be in a school,” she alleged in the complaint. Fraser told the person to “have a good day” and ended the call.
That same afternoon, the lawyers allege, a call was made to the state’s central registry, triggering a follow-up by the city’s child welfare agency, the Administration for Children’s Services.
According to court documents, the school psychologist told the child welfare caseworker she made the report because the “stalemate” with Fraser had “been going on too long,” and her supervisor “wanted ACS involved.”
ACS has acknowledged that Black families are overrepresented in the child welfare system, with 36% of hotline calls it responded to last fiscal year involving Black parents, according to a yearly demographics report. Fraser is Black.
Child welfare officials confirmed there was no immediate or impending danger to Jacob, who is now 19, and Fraser’s lawyers said she was put on the “CARES” track, which is more deferential to families and does not involve the court system.
However, Fraser said the experience — which included home searches and interviews — was traumatizing for her and her autistic son. It was also hard on her younger daughter, Mia, who was 13 at the time and not the subject of the allegation, but she too was interviewed and her school called by ACS.
“I walked into school I think days later,” said Mia. “All I could think to myself was, I don’t want this to become a public thing. I don’t want my friends to know. I don’t want my teachers to know.”
Years later, Mia, now 16, is more open about the experience — but she still thinks about the trauma that it caused.
“I did mention it in one of my college essays,” she added. “One of my drafts was about the incident, and how all I could think about in the entirety of the situation was, what’s going to happen to my brother?”
“I couldn’t put two and two together. And now, I realized why I couldn’t put two and two together: Because it didn’t make sense.”
Fraser told The News that she hopes her lawsuit will push the Department of Education to better serve children with disabilities.
“That’s the job: Educating Jacob,” Fraser said. “This was the mistake they made this time. They hoped I would take it personally and act like it’s me, that they’re coming after me. But this is clear they are going after Jacob.”
“They went after my son, and they’re using me as a vehicle, and they must stop,” she added. “They need to do their job.”
