Over the last decade, education experts have been ringing the alarm bell about the unequal treatment of children of color within schools. Data from the Department of Education shows that Black children are more likely to be disciplined than their white peers at any age and for any form of school discipline.
But how do you change such deeply entrenched anti-Blackness within the system? One way experts have proposed fixing these inequities is by reducing punishments for incredibly subjective categories such as “willful defiance.” In California, the category includes any disruption of school activities or “otherwise willfully defied the valid authority.”
Now, California is becoming the first state to ban suspensions across all age categories for “willful defiance” in hopes that the change will help reduce inequities for school suspensions.
Californians have reasons to be optimistic about the change. For one thing, it’s already in place for children from Kindergarten through 8th grade. And the policy has already been attempted at the local level in the state.
In 2013, the Los Angeles Unified School District eliminated defiance suspensions for all age groups. According to EdSource, suspensions dropped by 75 percent in the six years after the policy was implemented, and racial disparities narrowed.
School suspensions can have a massive impact on children inside and outside of the classroom. A recent report from the UCLA Civil Rights Project found that Black students lost 103 days per 100 students enrolled from school discipline.
There’s also the school-to-prison pipeline to contend with. Children who face disciplinary action are more likely to have interactions with the criminal justice system, whether that’s through campus police officers, the juvenile detention system, or other means.
So far, California is the only state to ban defiance suspensions across all age categories completely. But, if they can successfully drive down racial disparities, we could see this tried in other states.