Though educators continue to debate how best to address discipline in schools, there is increasing evidence that black students and other students of color experience harsher punishment for the same behaviors as their white peers. Still, this hasn’t stopped Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos from attempting to roll back Obama administration era guidance that seeks to reduce racial inequities in school discipline policies. Betsy DeVos doesn’t care about students of color at all—and especially isn’t interested in fixing the harm that’s being done to them. But these disparities continue to be an issue and they endanger the physical and emotional well-being of students of color around the country.
For black students, it is even worse. Not only are they at risk of increased suspensions and punishments, they are often subjected to violence by school officials. This week, a video surfaced showing a school employee in Memphis, Tennessee, dragging a 7-year-old black boy off a school bus by his feet, while the boy screams out for his mother. This abuse is nothing short of horrific. Of course, there are some folks out there who are perfectly comfortable justifying racism and the abuse of black bodies and will suggest that we don’t have all the facts and don’t know what happened before the video started rolling. But it really doesn’t matter. Anyone with an ounce of decency and common sense knows that a child should never be touched that way by anyone, but especially not by an adult at school. Physically assaulting a child has no place in school discipline.
As Chelsea Robinson from WBAL TV writes:
The incident allegedly took place on April 12, but the boy's mother, Kimberly Hardin, said she didn't know about the video until more than 24 hours later when a fellow parent showed it to her.
"They said he had bruises and a concussion. Because of the way he was dragged, he hit his head," said Hardin. "I feel bad. I didn't believe my child." [...]
School officials say the employee will face punishment as severe as termination.
Termination is the minimum that should happen to this employee. This kind of violence is worthy of jail time. It is also worth noting that this is unlikely to have happened to a white child (read never). Back in 2015, a cellphone video caught a school police officer body slamming and dragging a black girl in her South Carolina classroom. It should be unacceptable that we routinely see videos of school officials tackling, dragging, abusing and otherwise disrespecting the bodies of black children in the name of discipline. This is the exact thing that DeVos and certain educators want to enable when they say that the federal government has no place in issuing disciplinary guidance. They also seem perfectly content to ignore data, history and racial bias to support their alternative facts.
As the Huffington Post notes:
In high-poverty schools, black students are overrepresented among students who receive suspensions by 25 percentage points, and in more affluent schools, they are overrepresented by 12 points, the data shows. [...]
Even though black students only make up about 16 percent of public school students, they account for nearly 40 percent of students who are suspended from school, the report says.
Black children get punished in school simply for being black. This is not just an issue for black students either, although their punishments tend to be harsher. The research also demonstrates that students with disabilities and males are also suspended at higher rates. Suspensions and other interactions with juvenile justice while in school can permanently impact a student’s life.
Proponents of the Obama-era guidance say that having the federal government voice its priorities in this area is an important step in keeping students safe. Indeed, harsh school discipline can have far-reaching effects on a student’s life. Students who face suspensions are more likely to drop out of school or eventually enter the criminal justice system. Advocates say the guidance is designed to help stymie this cycle.
But critics say the pressure to reduce reliance on suspensions has meant keeping disruptive or dangerous students in the classroom, thereby posing a threat to other students and staff members.
Rescinding this guidance would be a huge mistake. It’s not as if guidance alone can change the racial discrimination that exists in schools but it can be a step toward accountability and policy change. The Trump administration poses a dangerous threat to the well-being and physical safety of all black people and people of color—children included. Just imagine how much worse this could get without federal guidelines. Add to the mix their dangerous proposal to arm teachers and other school personnel and we can envision schools becoming prisons where black and brown students are harmed, excessively beaten and even killed. Critics of the guidance say they want to keep dangerous and disruptive students out of the classroom. What about the danger and threat some of these adults pose to black kids? Black students, just like all black lives, matter.