A new resource guide from the Department of Education and the Department of Justice advises school districts that suspending a student who skips school is potentially discriminatory toward minority students.
The “Resource on Confronting Racial Discrimination in Student Discipline” outlines a range of actions that could be considered racially discriminatory because of a racially disparate impact, including suspending students who skip school.
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“Significant disparities by race – beginning as early as preschool – have persisted in the application of student discipline in schools,” Assistant Secretary of Education for Civil Rights Catherine Lhamon said in a letter accompanying the resource. “While racial disparities in student discipline alone do not violate the law, ensuring compliance with Federal nondiscrimination obligations can involve examining the underlying causes of such disparities. In specific cases, the Departments and the courts have concluded that violations of the laws the Departments enforce underlie these disparities.”
The department’s resource, which was developed alongside the Department of Justice’s Civil Rights division, highlighted several Office for Civil Rights investigations that exemplified the department’s definition of racially discriminatory actions.
According to the report, the department resolved an OCR investigation into Victor Valley Union High School District in August 2022, which said the district maintained discipline policies that “disproportionately harmed black students” that included suspending students from school that were late to school or skipped school entirely. Another school district, Wicomico County Public Schools in Maryland, was required to allow students who skipped school to make up their missed schoolwork.
The department’s resource was criticized by conservative education experts who noted the Biden administration was insinuating that school discipline practices such as suspensions are racist.
Bob Eitel, the president and co-founder of the Defense of Freedom Institute, told the Washington Examiner in a statement that the Biden administration is “wrong” to suggest that “school disciplinary policies are inherently racist.”
“What is inherently racist is assuming that school employees are racist because they are trying to maintain classroom order and discipline so students can learn,” Eitel said. “Classroom discipline should have nothing to do with the administration’s woke agenda on race, and everything to do with maintaining a productive learning environment.”
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Mailyn Salabarria, the director of community engagement for the parent activist organization Parents Defending Education, said in a statement that “accountability and personal responsibility are important life lessons for students, regardless of their race or ethnic background.”
“Schools embracing these race-focused recommendations will do a great disservice to minority students by increasing proficiency gaps, discipline issues and dropout rates,” Salabarria told the Washington Examiner. “By promoting race-based disciplinary approaches, the Biden administration exacerbates the problem of schools failing students and ultimately harm the very children they claim to support.”
