Dear Educators and Leaders in Education:
I am writing to you as a student. Specifically, a black female high school student in the public school system of Seattle, Washington. As a black person in the United States, I have seen various different forms of prejudice, micro-aggressions, and discrimination. All a part of this bigger monster called racism. But one of the more concerning places where I have witnessed such disgraceful things is in the classroom. As a first generation college-bound student, I can firmly tell you that I, along with many others, believe and acknowledge the power of education and the leaders in our education system are setting us up for success. But there have also been teachers who have been feeding into this systemic racism through the actions of over discipling and harming the future of their students (specifically black), whether that be psychologically through trauma or by physical things like arrests, which stay on their records and prevent them from schooling in the future. Now, I understand that not all teachers are like this, as a matter of fact, a majority of teachers are rooting for their students every year. However, these outliers are still present and their actions need to stop because there are detrimental effects that are becoming even more apparent, especially in the past few years, mainly around schools and school districts that have a large population of BIPOC students. Therefore, I will further unfold this issue by leading the discussion with the question: Why does the over-disciplining of BIPOC students lead to a continuation of the school-to-prison pipeline?
When approaching this heavy topic, I looked to an article Over-Disciplining Students, Racial Bias, and the School-to-Prison Pipeline by Professor Jason P. Nance at the University of Florida Levin College of Law. This article was one about the school-to-prison pipeline and looked at it from a perspective of school disciplining and how there are teachers and staff in power who act with instilled and institutionalized prejudices and racism against students of color, specifically black students, which leads to the continuation of the school system sending more children into prison. Initially, it started off with providing the statistics behind the what claim, so that the premise of increased disciplining in schools was defined and proven with data. An example of this “from the 1972–73 school year to the 2009–10 school year, the number of students expelled or suspended from secondary schools increased from one in thirteen to one in nine.1”. They also continue and state that there is also an upward trend in the number of black students that have been disciplined and to the degree of punishment received that they have been disciplined. This is again backed up by a national statistic given that says, “African American students represented 16% of the total student population during the 2011–12 school year, but represented 32% of students who received an in- school suspension, 33% of students who received an out-of-school suspension, 42% of students who received more than one out-of-school suspension, and 34% of students who were expelled.10… during the 2009–10 school year, one out of every four African American students with a disability was suspended during that same time period.12 And perhaps even worse than that, during the 2011–12 school year, while African American children represented 18% of preschool enrollment, they represented 48% of preschool children who received more than one out-of-school suspension.13” Even more statistics are provided to show how these racial disparities are continued when it comes to interactions with police and school-based arrests. The article also responds to the counterargument that these students of color are misbehaving at a disproportionate rate by stating that there is data that doesn’t support that theory. The article then moves on to discuss the existence of implicit bias within people of authority in schools (teacher, principal, etc.) and states that that is the issue at hand and the main driver of these racial attacks and gaps. By labeling it as implicit bias, the writer continues on to state that there needs to be set interventions or tactics to get rid of the root cause. There are ideas listed that schools can implement to get rid of this, including having a “zero-tolerance policy”, amending the rules to make it detailed and immune to ambiguous interpretations and implementations, and even limiting the use and number of calls to law enforcement. Furthermore, the author suggests that the Department of Education seeks research that will help us learn more about how to combat implicit bias and later proposes the idea of implementation of annual implicit bias training for all staff members in schools nationwide. If all of this is used, the article believes that the racial biases in disciplining students would eventually vanish.
I think that this article was a great starting point for this discussion and was able to set the introduction with plenty of statistics to back the claims up. One spot that I see needs improvement is in the solutions section about how to diffuse this issue of implicit bias. Although I don’t have many suggestions, I do think that a simple one or two day workshop won’t really be able to change a teacher’s prejudiced mind, especially if it has been instilled in them for decades.
I do, however, believe that Nance should also recommend a student committee be created at all high schools, where they will be able to intervene when staff members are calling the police or they would be able to determine if it was an appropriate action to take afterward. Giving the students some power would be fair because they are the ones who have to attend the school and they would be able to hold authoritative positions accountable since other staff members usually wouldn’t say anything. Additionally, this would be appropriate because they are grown teens who are about to enter the real world, so they would be able to practice their leadership and public speaking skills. Additionally, there should be a list of consequences that are set up in detail for staff that states what happens to staff members if they are deemed biased/racist and have been involved in inappropriate instances where they have been too harsh with their disciplining or have gotten students arrested unjustly. This would incentivize civility and equality because it warns teachers that there are actions to their malicious actions, similar to getting rid of qualified immunity for officers. I believe that if the author goes into further detail about these other options, it will truly be a more set of thorough solutions that schools can implement rather quickly.
I understand that this isn’t an issue with every single student of color and there are plenty of schools that are inclusive and strive to be as transparent and welcoming as possible. However, this doesn’t apply to them but rather to those who don’t follow this lead and do treat many students of color unfairly. There are plenty of schools and districts that need to be changed and maybe we can do it by following the example of the schools that have been successful in not only keeping the students safe and outside of disciplinary action, but also to the point where these students are excited to come to school and find it a pleasant experience.
In addition to the detrimental physical implications of over discipling, there also are mental and emotional tolls that these students go through. Oxytocin is a specific hormone that is known for it’s correlation and control with the human emotions of love and trust. There are studies that show that communities and children of color also tend to have lower levels of oxytocin due to the instability in the things in their lives. Specifically in TIME’s article ‘“Love Hormone” Oxytocin Is Choosy, But Not Necessarily Racist”’, there was a new study by the National Academy of Sciences that shows that “oxytocin does increase preferences for people of one’s own ethnicity while simultaneously, but to a lesser extent, increasing prejudice against outsiders.” Although this hasn’t been proven in full detail and in multiple studies, it is a starting point for researchers to see how exactly oxytocin affects the way people think and treat one another especially, those outside of your race. Although there aren’t any studies that connect over-disciplining BIPOC students with the decrease in oxytocin as an after-effect, there is a correlation there with the implicit bias of teachers who act a certain way having, possibly, lower levels of oxytocin and how that negatively affects the student as an effect. I suggest that the United States Department of Education look into it with a study, alongside the studies of how effective (or not) implicit bias training is and to see if it works more or less if/when it becomes an annual requirement training.
With such much information and reasoning of how this ongoing issue is continuing the school to prison pipeline, specifically low-income (large populations of color) schools and school districts with in-school cops, zero-tolerance policies, and lack of implicit bias training, there needs to not only be new research to see how to fix and deal with implicit biases in schools. We also need to look into how we can stop this school-to-prison pipeline that started long ago systemically, and how we can reroute and invest in our communities so that these young students of color could see successful futures. We need to do this for our generation. For the coming generation. It would be beyond shameful to see these issues continue for coming decades. I know I don’t have the answer, but let’s invest in our future and figure it out.
Thank you so much,
Solomey Alemseged
Works Cited
Jason P. Nance, Over-Disciplining Students, Racial Bias, and the School-to-Prison Pipeline, 50 U. Rich. L. Rev. 1063 (2016), available athttp://scholarship.law.ufl.edu/facultypub/749
Nance goes into depth about the number of students that are over-disciplined and how they are treated differently from their white counterparts for the same actions. He supports his claims with statistical evidence that come from a variety of studies, including the US Department of Education. He also explores ways to prevent this from happening in the future and how we can end and fix the system, overall.
Joint - Dear Colleague Letter, US Department of Education (ED), 11 Sept. 2020, www2.ed.gov/about/offices/list/ocr/letters/colleague-201401-title-vi.html.
This letter is thorough with how the previous presidential administration saw these detrimental effects and how they planned on approaching it. The goal was to raise awareness and make everyone as actively involved and anti-racist as possible. They laid out all of the implications that the students have to endure if there was a continuation of this, like physical, emotional, psychological, and more.
“School-to-Prison Pipeline [Infographic].” American Civil Liberties Union, www.aclu.org/issues/juvenile-justice/school-prison-pipeline/school-prison-pipeline-infographic.
This article was able to briefly break down the statistics of black students to white students, when it comes to arrests, disciplining, suspensions, expellings, and other authority actions that are never in their favor. This helps lay the foundation for the claims that this later affects a students ability to continue with their education and for some, lead to juvenile or even prison. All of the information is based on public schools.
Szalavitz, Maia. “‘Love Hormone’ Oxytocin Is Choosy, But Not Necessarily Racist.” Time, Time, 13 Jan. 2011, healthland.time.com/2011/01/13/how-the-love-hormone-may-contribute-to-racism/.
This article was able to open up a new segway in science and question if oxytocin, a social and trust hormone, plays a role in implicit biases and racism. It was found that it did give a person a sense of trust in those that look like them and a bit of fear of those outside of their racial category. This article also looks at scientific evidence and essentially asks the scientific community to further look into the brian and the psychological behaviours and processes that occur during racial tension and interactions.
Owen, Julian. “How Does Harsh Discipline Affect a Teen's Brain?” Independent Education Today, 20 Dec. 2018, ie-today.co.uk/health-and-well-being/how-does-harsh-discipline-affect-a-teens-brain/.
“Oxytocin in Crisis.” Education Conferences, www.learningandthebrain.com/blog/oxytocin-in-crisis/.
Riddle, Travis, and Stacey Sinclair. “Racial Disparities in School-Based Disciplinary Actions Are Associated with County-Level Rates of Racial Bias.” PNAS, National Academy of Sciences, 23 Apr. 2019, www.pnas.org/content/116/17/8255.
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