Nooses and Zero Tolerance
By Monique L. Dixon, Senior Attorney, Advancement Project
“If you can figure out how to make a school yard fight into an attempted murder charge, I’m sure you can figure out how to make stringing nooses into a hate crime.” This was the sentiment of a 40-year old marcher who traveled hundreds of miles last month to demand justice for six Black high school students of Jena, La. – also known as the Jena 6. The school fight between the Jena 6 and a White student was the culmination of a series of incidents that exposed racial tensions within that small town and all that could go wrong in the administration of school discipline. The Jena 6 incident is a stark example of the injustices many parents, students, and education advocates have fought against in school discipline matters for decades, with some success.
The criminalization of mundane student misbehavior is nothing new. It has been the reality of school discipline practices in America since the late 1980s when schools adopted “zero tolerance” law enforcement practices. Congress ultimately endorsed the notion of zero tolerance in schools by passing the Gun-Free Schools Act of 1994, which required states to pass laws authorizing the expulsion of students found on school grounds with firearms. But, states and school districts went far beyond what the Act required and instead passed laws that required the suspension or expulsion of students for the possession and/use of any weapon, drug, or the commission of other serious violations on or off school grounds.
From a school safety perspective, zero tolerance policies seem reasonable, and would be acceptable if they were applied to only those serious offenses it was intended to punish – firearms and drug offenses. But, school districts across the country went to the extreme when they teamed up with law enforcement and prosecutors to create another educational track in this country’s schools – the “schoolhouse to jailhouse track” – by imposing a “double dose” of punishment: suspensions or expulsions and a trip to juvenile court – for one act of typical adolescent misconduct. Consequently, arresting a 5-year-old girl for having a temper tantrum in her St. Petersburg, Fla. school, or issuing misdemeanor citations to Houston students because they were involved in minor school fights is more the rule than the exception.
In fall 2006, a Black student at Jena High School asked to sit under a tree that was a typical hangout for the school’s White students. The next day, three White students hung nooses from the tree. Dismissed as a prank, school officials punished the students with three days of out-of-school suspension. Under the school district’s discipline policy, expulsion may be recommended for “threatening a student and/or faculty or staff with a weapon (real or imagined).” If one considers a noose a weapon, then expulsion of these students could have been an option. It is unclear from news reports whether expulsion was considered. Several months later, however, when the Jena 6 got into a schoolyard fight with a White student, they were expelled and criminally charged, even though the school district’s discipline policy provides that a three day out-of-school suspension could be doled out for fighting. This racial disparity in the administration of school discipline among students in Jena demonstrates a national problem and one aspect of what goes wrong in schools around the country.
The incidents in Jena, the advocacy of the young men’s parents and lawyers, and the national outcry also represents all that goes right in struggles for racial and social justice. Communities across the country, particularly communities of color, have organized to end the needless criminalization of students. Many valuable lessons have emerged from these campaigns. If there is a political will and relentless community pressure for change it can happen. The pressure is on in Jena. The reform of school discipline practices can happen. It is happening in places like Denver.
Denver, the Mile High City, is just east of the Rocky Mountains and is home to over 500,000 residents. Although the population of the City is predominantly White, the Denver Public School (DPS) system’s student population is 57.3 percent Latino and 18.08 percent Black. For years, Black and Latino students graduated from DPS high schools at rates as low as 39 percent and 31 percent respectively. While fewer and fewer students of color graduated each year, more and more were pushed out of schools through suspensions, expulsion and referrals to juvenile courts for minor acts of misconduct. Determined to put an end to low graduation and high discipline rates of Black and Latino students, a local grassroots community organization – Padres y Jovenes Unidos (Parents and Youth United) took action in 2003.
With research and advocacy support from Advancement Project, Jovenes Unidos, all of whom were DPS students, began a participatory research project to document and expose the unfair and racially disproportionate discipline practices experienced by their peers. They gathered and analyzed school discipline data, surveyed their peers, and observed state and county juvenile court sessions both as a way to learn more about the system and to identify parents and youth who were willing to discuss school-based encounters that tracked into the juvenile justice system. Jovenes Unidos found that DPS saw a 71 percent increase in the number of school referrals to law enforcement from 2000 to 2004. Forty-two percent of these referrals were for conduct described as disruptive appearance, use of obscenities and minor fights. The majority of the students disciplined for these minor infractions were disproportionately Black and Latino.
Additionally, Jovenes Unidos learned that juvenile court officials were growing increasingly frustrated with the hundreds of school-related cases that were ultimately dismissed. Armed with this information, Padres y Jovenes Unidos published their findings in Education on Lockdown: The Schoolhouse to Jailhouse Track in 2005 and began presenting it to members of the community. To address this school discipline crisis, Padres y Jovenes Unidos recently pushed for and won two major reforms: a complete revision of the district’s school discipline policy, and the creation and implementation of more school-based programs – such as restorative justice – that addresses student misbehavior and conflict without using suspensions, expulsion, or school based arrests.
The revised policy, which is designed to use corrective disciplinary measures more and exclusionary measures (e.g., suspensions) less, is scheduled to go before the DPS Board this year. The restorative justice programs were implemented in four DPS schools last year and are now in the process of being evaluated to determine its effectiveness. There was a 53.8 percent decrease in suspensions at one of the middle schools where the program operated last year.
Other student-led and parent groups in Chicago and Los Angeles have successfully exposed the injustices that exists in school discipline and taken steps to change these policies and practices that criminalize student behavior. From these struggles for justice in school discipline some valuable lessons have emerged:
- Let the students take the lead. They know unfairness and injustice when they see it, and they also have great ideas on how to address it.
- Analyze the discipline data and expose the problem.
- Educate the public about the negative impact of overzealous school discipline through community gatherings and media advocacy.
- Find allies in the school system and police department who embrace the notion of fair and nondiscriminatory discipline policies and create joint reform agendas, if possible.
- Remember that the wheels of justice turn slowly. You may not win right away, but small victories do occur.
Communities and educators must work toward building school climates where police and prosecutors are not called upon to determine whether acts of racial intolerance and schoolyard fights should be prosecuted. This type of environment is not going to occur on its own. We must continue to expose the injustices in school discipline and demand that our elected officials and school administrators take steps toward discipline reform. The table is set in Jena and other cities across the country. May the work continue until justice is done.
Additional Information about efforts to end zero tolerance in schools
Padres Unidos - http://www.padresunidos.org/eni
Southwest Youth Collaborative - http://www.swyc.org/OurHistory
Children & Family Center of Northwestern University School of Law - http://www.law.northwestern.edu/cfjc/programs/
Advancement Project - http://www.advancementproject.org/ourwork/opportunity-to-learn/schoolhouse-to-jailhouse/index.php
Juvenile Law Center - http://www.jlc.org/EZT/
NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund - http://www.naacpldf.org/issues.aspx?issue=3
Children’s Defense Fund - http://www.childrensdefense.org/site/PageServer?
pagename=c2pp
ACLU - http://www.aclu.org/racialjustice/edu/index.html and for legal advocates (password protected): http://www.schooltoprison.org/
Civil Rights Project – http://www.civilrightsproject.ucla.edu/research/
discipline/discipline_gen.php
Endnotes
Richard G. Jones,
Louisiana Protest Echoes the Civil Rights Era, New York Times, Sept. 21, 2007.
Melissa Block and Robert Siegel, Disciplinary Policy in Texas Schools Raises Concerns, All Things Considered, National Public Radio, June 25, 2007.
