Suspended Education: School Punishment and the Legacy of Racial Injustice

Suspension rates in American schools skyrocketed after the Supreme Court’s 1954 Brown v. Board of Education decision, according to this troubling study. Sociologist Kupchik (Homeroom Security) draws on extensive archival and statistical analysis to rule out any reason for the explosive rise in suspensions other than white resistance to desegregation. Before Brown v. Board, “suspension was simply not a common school practice,” Kupchik points out, contending that from a “pedagogical or behavior-management perspective” there is no justification for it, so suspension “only make[s] sense if we see these students as unwanted.” Delving into historical case studies of school desegregation in Massachusetts and Delaware, he provides ample evidence of the use of suspension as a weapon against Black students, some of whom were brutally attacked by white students and then suspended for “fighting.” While Black suspension rates remain disproportionately high today, Kupchik makes a convincing case that the lessening of the gap between Black and white suspension rates shows that while explicit racism is less likely to be the impetus behind suspension, unconscious bias is still motivating the practice (he cites infuriating anecdotes of Black male students being suspended because their innocuous actions—like standing up from their desk—were considered “threatening”). It’s an essential read for educators. (Mar.)