Liam Day speaks to a new Department of Education study, which found a startling gap in the harshness of punishment based on race and sex.
As reported by The New York Times, new data released by the federal Department of Education last week highlights a dynamic I don’t think will come as much of a surprise to many people: black students, particularly black boys, are more likely to be disciplined in school than other students. Three and half times more likely to be exact.
Despite comprising only 18% of the students in the 72,000 schools sampled, black students were 35% of those who had been suspended at least once, 46% of those who had been suspended more than once, and 39% of all students who had been expelled. In all, one in five black boys had received at least one out-of-school suspension.
I’m not going to offer an hypothesis as to why this is happening. There are probably many reasons having to do with everything from the chaotic nature of the schools black children are more likely to attend to simple prejudice, both conscious and not.
What I would like to do is draw a line – a line from the school data to court data, where disparities demonstrate, I believe, inequities. As in the discipline systems of our public schools, black children are overrepresented in the juvenile justice system and before you argue that it could simply be that black children commit more crimes, consider the following statistics:
1) Between 1986 and 1991, the number of white youth arrested for a drug-related offense decreased 34% at the same time that the number of youth of color arrested for a drug-related offense increased 78%.
2) In 1995, only 15% of arrests of white youth led to detention, as compared to 27% of arrests of black youth, this despite the fact that white youth represented 52% of all juvenile arrests and black only 45%.
3) In a 2002 report, the Racial Disparity Initiative of the Council on Crime and Justice found that, though African-American males were more likely to use drugs, the discrepancy paled in comparison to the difference in the arrest rates between African-American and white males. African-American males used drugs at a rate only 51% higher than white males, but were arrested for drug-related offenses at a rate 400% higher.
4) Finally, in a report just last week, The Sentencing Project determined that the race of the offender and victim might play a role in whether a juvenile suspect is sentenced to juvenile life without parole. I quote directly from the report’s executive summary: “The proportion of African Americans serving JLWOP sentences for the killing of a white person (43.4%) is nearly twice the rate at which African American juveniles are arrested for taking a white person’s life (23.2%). Conversely, white juvenile offenders with black victims are only about half as likely (3.6%) to receive a JLWOP sentence as their proportion of arrests for killing blacks (6.4%).”
Overall, roughly 10% of young black men are in prison. It appears that we have, either consciously or unconsciously, created a system of adjudication that is more likely to funnel black men to jail than white men. Drawing connections in the data, perhaps the funneling begins in school and not in court.
Photo courtesy of Diego3336
Nick. Federal civil rights laws were designed to get around double jeopardy. IOW, if the feds take an interest in a case and the defendant walks in a state case, they can claim whatever it was is a civil rights issue. See Rodney King. So, technically, it’s not the SAME crime, but of course it is. Now, as with all things begun with good intentions, it can turn sour. See civil forfeiture.
Kirsten Juror null is a good idea, a last resort. But when you do it, you have to recall that you are going against laws put into force by the democratic process. That is a big, big deal. Second, “harmless” is a concept most commonly found in a close-focus view. Drugs, for example, are “harmless” if the buyer and seller are willing. That’s until a drugged-out guy does something stupid and hurts somebody. We penalize people selliing booze and cigarettes to the underage. Both are “harmless” at least to the extent drugs are. We penalize guys for statutory rape which… Read more »
This is only one tool in the toolbox, and one that by its nature cannot address the school portion of the problem. However, I will once again mention that nearly everyone potentially has an opportunity to chip away at this unjust imbalance before many of these young men get to prison. When serving on a jury, refuse to convict defendants of victimless “crimes”. Nullify unjust laws that harm people who have harmed nobody by refusing to enforce them. Refuse to be complicit in their unjust application to anybody, and especially in their disproportionate application to young black men and other… Read more »
When serving on a jury, refuse to convict defendants of victimless “crimes”. You mean like cannabis posession? If so, I’d agree it should be legalised, but by refusing to correctly answer the question “In your opinion do the facts prove they did this thing,” you’re not changing the law, you’re usurping the power of the legislature. Its important not to forget that juries aren’t elected by popular mandate to judge whether laws are right or wrong, how heavily they should be punished or whether they should be enforced. They’re randomly selected in order to judge facts related to alleged crimes.… Read more »
In extreme cases like a death penalty for a political crime I’d consider refusing to serve, but not returning a false verdict. Maybe that was what you had in mind?
Jury nullification is a subject that deserves separate treatment from this issue. To the extent that it intersects with the mission of the Good Men Project, perhaps that’s a topic one of us could write about. The concept of jury nullification stems from two facts. First, we don’t interrogate jurors about their reasoning for delivering a particular verdict. Whether that verdict comes back as guilty or not guilty, we don’t later put the jury on trial for delivering a verdict not to our liking. Second, in our legal system we have the concept of res judicata. Once acquitted, a defendant… Read more »
That should be…
Once acquitted, a defendant can not be tried again for the same crime.
nick. Ref black culture. For starters, see McWhorter, Losing The Race, Walter Williams on practically anything. And in the category of with friends like these, see the http://www.seattlepi.com/local/opinion/article/Planning-ahead-is-considered-racist-1204942.phpSeattle School board. It appears the seattelites figure blacks have a different culture, and since having such things as future time orientation is racist, then black culture must not have it. Etc. The school system in which my kids grew up had a number of black families who got to middle class areas the traditional way. All was okay until we also got public housing. It’s the only bus which has a cop… Read more »
I say again, this article would not exist were it not for the planted axiom that misbehavior is evenly distributed. It is simply, logically impossible to have an issue about punishment if you don’t have misbehavior evenly distributed. Richard, I’ve been told you’re quite intelligent, which is why your insistence here is puzzling. Let me present you with a hypothetical using simple math to show you what is happening and why “even distribution” is not required to show a disparity. Let’s say a school has one thousand children, two hundred black and eight hundred white. If misbehavior were evenly distributed,… Read more »
Nick. The only stats that would support Liam’s argument are those mentioned in the Texas data. I have heard of such studies for years. However, as with most studies having to do with people, there is always room for dispute. What is “fighting”? There was a case in my kids’ HS some time after they graduated where a real butthead got his face ground into the linoleum by a wrestler. Since the wrestler didn’t “hit” the guy, the admin, trying not to smile, said there was no “fight”. Wrestler was a class hero. This is an extreme case. Both happened… Read more »
“By the way, my daughter says some of her HS kids can’t tell time with an analog clock. Their so-called parents didn’t bother to teach them.”
Don’t know about you, but I learned to read a clock in primary school maths rather than from my parents. Maybe their parents assumed they were learning these things in school? Its still pretty bad either way.
It’s a one-two combo. You have far too many black students who simply are not being parented for a number of reasons (only one parent in the household, absent or exhausted due to working an increasing number of hours, neglect/abuse, etc.). The children are also subject to much harsher punishments because they are black. It’s the perfect dry run for the prison system. When I was teaching in the public school, we used to have a couple of “feeder schools” i.e. middle schools where many of our students came from. I imagine many jails could identify their own “feeder schools”… Read more »
“It’s a one-two combo. You have far too many black students who simply are not being parented for a number of reasons (only one parent in the household, absent or exhausted due to working an increasing number of hours, neglect/abuse, etc.). The children are also subject to much harsher punishments because they are black.”
THIS. It’s an issue of social inequalities and significantly more complex than merely, “Well, maybe they just misbehave more.” I mean, people get their doctorates on researching these things.
Let me put it another way: The article would not have been written without the planted axiom that misbehavior is evenly distributed. Without that presumption, there is no evidence of a problem. My question is whether there is any evidence that the planted axiom, and its uncritical acceptance, is actually true.
Once again you’ve ignored any questions asked of you, in preference of making unfounded assertions that are contrary to the evidence we do have. You give the appearance of having a bias against believing it could possibly be true, and rather than the stats to be provisionally true and looking to see if they confirm or refute other evidence we have, you reject them outright and require extraordinary evidence for what isn’t an extraordinary claim. While the school discipline statistics are harder to piece together (we can’t control for which offenses are referred for disciplinary action), the sentencing statistics speak… Read more »
Well said.
Richard, I believe Nick’s last question is the operative one: “When we already know that this happens in the criminal justice system, why would we expect otherwise in education discipline?” The criminal justice statistics I cited are, with the exception of #1, both crime and punishment statistics, and, even with the first statistic, I find it difficult to believe that drug use by white youth declined 34% between 1986 and 1991 to explain the 34% decrease in drug-arrests of white youth during the same period. One thing you are correct about is the current lack of comparable data in our… Read more »
As above, unevenly distributed misbehaviour is evidence of a problem in and of itself.
Peter,
I would agree with you. Even if Richard were right, which, to be blunt, I don’t believe he is, the discrepancy in behavior would represent an issue of inequality in and of itself. I am merely attempting to debate Richard on his terms.
Thank you for your interest in the article, though. I do appreciate it. As, I must add, I appreciate Richard’s. Even though we may disagree with him, that he is willing to engage is a good thing.
Liam
Sorry, true, I wasn’t arguing that misbehaviour definitely is unevenly distributed. Just that if it is then the observation and article are still relevant.
Nick. I am sixty-seven years old, which ought to answer all your questions. However, pretty much all my female relatives are teachers. Pretty much all of them know other teachers. My kids played ball in HS which took us to various schools, some middle-class, some rural white, some urban. Example. My dtr, in her frosh year in college, was on the dorm council. The campus Black Caucus asked if they could have a dance in the dorm facilities. The council knew that the last BC dance had resulted in property damage, injuries, fighting, and cops coming at another dorm. But… Read more »
Ok… so theres a high rate of fatherlesness (is this anything to do with black culture so much as lower income communities?). Could this not lead to black kids getting punished more harshly at school?
Peter. Might be the sign of a disfunctional subculture. Thing is, it’s not kosher to say so. We’re supposed to honor black culture. Talk about the knockout game or the misogyny, or the flash mobs assaulting whites or robbing convenience stores and you’ll get called out for dishonoring MLK, Jr.. It is also to the profit of various leaders to continue the theme of black repression. The hoax of an epidemic of burnings of black churches about fifteen years ago was a MAJOR fundraising tool for the “National Council of Churches (nobody goes to)” By coincidence, I had been talking… Read more »
You speak of “the knockout game” as if it were a thing blacks do. You speak of black culture as if it were a monolithic thing. You make claims and suppositions that appear to be projections and hypotheticals. You demand empirical evidence of others while writing in generalizations and anecdotes yourself. Do you have experience in education that might provide evidence to the contrary? Do you have good reason to believe that the statistical discrepancy is explained solely by behavior rather than other factors, given what we know about the crime and punishment discrepancies blacks face as recounted by Liam?… Read more »
Even if it is due to a dysfunctional subculture I don’t think america can wash its hands of it. Conditions in poor working class areas are perpetuated by social policy. I don’t agree that the cultural constructs of poor immegrants coming from functional societies can be extrapolated to prove that the cultural constructs of a social underclass can be said to be wholly to blame for their condition. If Chinese parents push their kids to do well in school it has at least something to do with the fact that they or their ancestors came from a country and culture… Read more »
This article caught quite a bit of attention on an educators’ blog–“Joanne Jacobs”–and there was an important question: What about the kids who don’t act up? Are we supposed to increase their risk, and the disruption to their education, by keeping the assaultive kids and the disruptive kids in school? The difference in punishment would be obviously a matter of the disciplinary process if we presume the acting out is equally distributed between whites, asians, hispanics, and blacks. We need something empirical to prove this before we look at the disciplinary system. And, said a commenter on the Jacobs blog,… Read more »
For me it doesn’t really matter why this is so, no matter what the answer is its shocking. If black students are acting up three times more than white students then thats still evidence of some huge inequality in society.
The research here is nothing new and not anything that black youth and adults have experienced since Jim Crow. Now there is evidence. The point here, though is that black students are not acting up more, but that they are more likely to be punished and punished more harshly.
I believe Liam is offering empirical evidence, Aubrey. It’s about arrests and convictions, but as far as discipline in school goes, that data could easily be extrapolated to make basic assumptions.
Joanna,
It would only be an issue if we had empirical data showing that misbehavior is evenly distributed. In that case, we’d have a problem with the disciplinary process.
We we see is empirical data showing blacks are more likely to be disciplined. If they were more likely to be misbehaving, this would be entirely justified.
If they misbehaved at the rate of, say, asians, but were disciplined more harshly, that would be evidence of a problem.
But we see no evidence either way in this case whether the problem of misbehavior is evenly distributed. Without that, we have nothing.
Even is misbehaviour is unevenly distributed doesn’t this still say something about the society they’re growing up in?