This week, custody was returned to a young Black mother in Mississippi after a judge prohibited her from seeing her 4-month old child for over one year due to unpaid court fees.

John Shirley, the judge who prohibited “Mother A” from seeing her child for 14 months, resigned from his position, but his decision to take custody away from this mother isn’t an isolated incident of court misconduct — it’s institutional racism.

Mothers of color are demonized in court and the criminal “justice” system, facing harsher punishments and sentences than white mothers. From custody changes to excessive bail fees to incarceration, the U.S. court system often punishes women of color by taking their children away.

This is reproductive injustice. Mothers of color have a right to raise their children, and children have a right to live in a safe environment. Living in fear that your parent may be incarcerated or taken away from you due to unpaid court fees is not safe or just.

Sign now to demand that the U.S. court system stop taking children away from mothers of color.