In 2016, the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) of Missouri filed a lawsuit against a Missouri school where a 7-year-old child had been marched to the principal’s office in handcuffs. Kalyb Wiley Primm, a black second grader, had responded to taunts from classroom bullies by crying and screaming. The ACLU saw Primm’s treatment as part of a disturbing pattern of over-policing of schools.
Now, the organization has released a report detailing the extent of that problem in Missouri – and what citizens can do to combat it. They found that black students are more likely to be disciplined, suspended and physically punished than other students.
Perhaps most startlingly, the ACLU found Missouri has the largest disciplinary disparity in the nation between black and white elementary school students.
“For years, the disproportionate discipline of students of color and students with disabilities has tarnished Missouri’s reputation,” Sara Baker, legislative and policy director of the ACLU of Missouri, wrote. “Without an adequate education, cycles of poverty remain unbroken and generations of families remain unjustly disadvantaged by a demographic lottery, more at risk of failure because of the ZIP code they live in. All children have an equal right to education. Missouri must offer this opportunity to succeed for all of its young people.”
The report links the pattern of educational disparities in Missouri to the state’s long history of racial inequity, but also offers a path forward to a more equitable education system.
“Although many youth-centered systems intend benevolence in the forms of academic excellence, protection, and treatment, the data reveals they are infected with racism,” said Rev. Dietra Wise Baker, a member of Metropolitan Congregations United’s Break the Pipeline campaign. “Our region must deal with the data for the sake of all our children.”
The right to an equal education is written into the Constitution of Missouri and in Brown vs. Board of Education, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that education cannot be separate or unequal. But in Missouri, the ACLU found, discipline in schools has made the education of many black students drastically different, and inferior, to their white peers.
“Disproportionate and excessive discipline of children not only deprives them of their right to education, but can also put them on a path to prison – what’s known as the school-to-prison pipeline,” the ACLU of Missouri reported. “Students who come in contact with law enforcement and the criminal justice system because of their in-school behaviors have a greater likelihood of continued interaction with the criminal justice system as they grow up. They are less likely to succeed in school.”
The report highlights several factors that contribute to the school-to-prison pipeline in Missouri. First among these is a significant difference in the rates of discipline between black and white students. Black students are more likely to be suspended, expelled and referred to law enforcement than their white peers. They are even more likely to be corporally punished, something which is still legal in Missouri. The ACLU of Missouri found that black students are almost twice as likely as white students to be physically punished at school.
There is even an increasing trend in Missouri’s schools towards placing students in “seclusion rooms” – involuntary confinement – and using physical restraint, both of which are applied disproportionately to black students and especially disabled black students.
Katheryne Staeger-Wilson of the Missouri Developmental Disabilities Council said the issue has been one of increasing concern for the disabled people she works with and their families.
“This is an issue that really impacts their children, their families and their communities,” Staeger-Wilson said at an ACLU press conference on October 12.
Black disabled students may be the most vulnerable group in Missouri’s public schools. Students with disabilities are, across the nation, about twice as likely to be suspended. However, the report found the problem is especially bad for students in Missouri who are both black and disabled; they are three times more likely to be suspended.
Once a student is marked as problematic, the discipline they are subjected to is likely to go beyond suspensions. These students are more likely to then be expelled from public schools and to be referred to law enforcement, including School Resource Officers (SROs). These are the students who might go on to be referred to special schools for those with behavioral problems, to be funneled into the juvenile justice system, and to eventually be incarcerated.
“The fact that young, black men without a high school diploma or equivalent are more likely to be incarcerated than employed illustrates the lifetime consequences of excessive school discipline,” the ACLU of Missouri reports.
Many states have, in recent years, created new laws to limit suspensions and expulsions, but Missouri is not among them. Missouri’s rate of expulsion actually doubled between 2011 and 2014.
Missouri is also more likely than other states to have overt police presence in public schools, with 37.9 percent of schools hosting a SRO. The ACLU of Missouri reports that these officers are likely to be undertrained and overzealous in their approach to disciplining students.
At the ACLU’s press conference on October 12, educators and community leaders said the problems in the education system are tied to larger problems of racism in Missouri.
“Our region can’t continue to communicate that black youth don’t matter,” Baker said.
So if the goal is to keep students out of the school-to-prison pipeline, what can Missourians do? The ACLU of Missouri provides recommendations for many groups, including students, parents, educators and lawmakers (see sidebar).
In some ways, though, the problem may be getting worse. The ACLU of Missouri identifies charter schools as an emerging trouble spot in the quest for educational equality.
“Across the U.S., charter schools have been found to have a suspension rate 16 percent higher than non-charter schools,” the ACLU of Missouri reports. “Additionally, charter schools were found to have a higher suspension gap than non-charter schools for black students and students with disabilities. Charter schools can also create confusion with respect to readmitting or providing alternative educational opportunities to students that have been suspended or expelled.”
New political leaders like Missouri Governor Eric Greitens and U.S. Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos are firm supporters of charter schools, as was former St. Louis Mayor Francis G. Slay; Mayor Lyda Krewson has consistently said she supports all public schools, including charters.
Educators like Sharonica Hardin, superintendent of University City schools, said educators should work to make the education process more humanizing.
“We must think differently about student discipline,” Hardin said. “As schools and learning organizations become more trauma-informed, our practices should be more restorative in nature. Punitive measures simply don’t work.”
To read the report, visit https://www.aclu-mo.org/index.php?cID=697.
What can you do to combat inequality in schools?
Parents:
Learn your rights and your child’s rights at school.
Learn about your school’s use of School Resource Officers (SROs).
Learn how to appeal your school’s disciplinary process.
Students:
Ask for information about your rights at school and about behavior expectations and punishments.
Learn what rights you have when interacting with law enforcement and with school administration.
Tell a parent or guardian about inequality you observe at your school.
Teachers
Tell students what rights they have and clearly explain disciplinary practices.
Learn about and implement practices like restorative justice.
Make sure to understand your students’ disabilities and not to discipline them for related behaviors.
School board members and administrators:
Limit the role of police officers in disciplinary practices.
Work to eliminate out-of-school suspension and expulsion.
Hire more counselors for students and implement trauma-informed practices.
Law enforcement
Properly train School Resource Officers and set clear limits for when they should be involved in student discipline.
Only arrest or detain students as a last resort after other options have been explored.
Lawmakers
Identify and eliminate zero-tolerance policies.
Examine Missouri’s laws on school policy for language that could be used to discriminate against children with disabilities and children of color.
Require that schools protect their students’ Fourth Amendment rights.
Source: ACLU of Missouri
Parents:
Learn your rights and your child’s rights at school.
Learn about your school’s use of School Resource Officers (SROs).
Learn how to appeal your school’s disciplinary process.
Students:
Ask for information about your rights at school and about behavior expectations and punishments.
Learn what rights you have when interacting with law enforcement and with school administration.
Tell a parent or guardian about inequality you observe at your school.
Teachers
Tell students what rights they have and clearly explain disciplinary practices.
Learn about and implement practices like restorative justice.
Make sure to understand your students’ disabilities and not to discipline them for related behaviors.
School board members and administrators:
Limit the role of police officers in disciplinary practices.
Work to eliminate out-of-school suspension and expulsion.
Hire more counselors for students and implement trauma-informed practices.
Law enforcement
Properly train School Resource Officers and set clear limits for when they should be involved in student discipline.
Only arrest or detain students as a last resort after other options have been explored.
Lawmakers
Identify and eliminate zero-tolerance policies.
Examine Missouri’s laws on school policy for language that could be used to discriminate against children with disabilities and children of color.
Require that schools protect their students’ Fourth Amendment rights.
Source: ACLU of Missouri
