PA School District Ordered To Pay Expelled 14-Year-Old Rapper
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A 14-year-old rapper who was arrested and then suspended for two years by The Riverside Beaver County School District in Pennsylvania for posting his battle raps on the internet has been awarded a $90,000 settlement over his expulsion from school.
Anthony “emceeaccident” Latour, member of an upcoming rap group Just Business, was handcuffed and arrested in middle school in April of 2005, after another student rapper’s mother saw lyrics the two were posting back and forth on the internet.
Latour was charged with terroristic threats over the lyrics to the rap songs.
The same day Latour was arrested, seven police officers with a K-9 dog searched his parents home and confiscated $10,000 worth of recording equipment Latour’s parents had purchased for him.
The rapper spent a week in a juvenile detention facility over the incident and was eventually expelled for two years because of the violent lyrics that allegedly threatened other students.
“I live in a small town and they really don’t understand rap music,” Latour told AllHipHop.com. “I didn’t really know what was happening, it blindsided me.”
The Pittsburgh chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union filed a federal lawsuit on behalf of Latour in August of 2005, claiming the school had violated his First Amendment rights.
One of the songs that helped get Latour expelled was titled “Murder He Wrote,” which lawyers for the ACLU deemed “a third party narrative song about the incident at columbine [high school in Colorado] reflecting Anthony’s attempt to imagine what could have been going on in the heads of the students who perpetuated the tragedy.”
Latour, who said he considers Eminem, Necro and D-Block as his main influences, said he hails from a small town here people don’t understand Hip-Hop music.
At a May expulsion hearing, the student Latour was battling admitted he was never threatened and that the two never intended to harm each other.
In August, attorneys from the ACLU argued that the rapper was battling and that his lyrics didn’t threaten anyone specifically.
"Anthony's rap music -- by which he flexes his lyrical muscles -- is not a true threat, but is art enjoying full First Amendment protection,” argued Kim Watterson, a lawyer based in Pittsburgh with the international law firm Reed Smith, which handled the case on a pro bono basis.
Watterson also called noted Hip-Hop author Bikari Kitwana to testify on behalf of Latour. Kitwana explained that battle rap can “get pretty nasty in terms of the language," but was still simply “a verbal challenge.”
On Monday (Nov. 23), Chief U.S. District Judge Donetta W. Ambrose ruled the songs were protected by the First Amendment and that they were posted from his home, not school.
The Riverside Beaver County School District must now pay Latour and his family $90,000.
The school district has also agreed to write a letter acknowledging that the 14-year-old did not threaten “the school or the students by way of his songs."
Latour said he plans to use the majority of his settlement money to upgrade his home recording studio.
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