Group Accuses RI Schools of Racial Profiling
Thursday, June 06, 2013
Last year one in six black students received suspensions, while only one in sixteen white students were suspended.
"It's straight up racial profiling. It's systemic racism all throughout. People are asking why systemic racism exists, and it's because of the sort of systems that support institutional racism," Ordonez said.
At a news conference held Wednesday to announce the new report, Ordonez said that "pushing people out temporarily doesn't address the issue, it only postpones it." Schools need to participate in conflict mediation, Ordonez said, instead of upping reinforcements and doling out generalized punishments, hoping students learn their lesson. "Why are we always willing to invest in more police, invest in more beds in the training school that cost more than solutions that could help resolve the behavioral problem altogether," he said.
GET THE LATEST BREAKING NEWS HERE -- SIGN UP FOR GOLOCAL FREE DAILY EBLAST173 suspensions in the first grade
According to the ACLU's report, there is "significant evidence that out-of-school suspensions are counter-productive and carry long-term unintended consequences." One key finding was that more than 12,000 students lose upwards of 54,000 school days due to suspensions. Regulating these suspensions is especially crucial for minority students, as last year one in six black students received a suspension. Black high school students are also twice as likely as white high school students to be suspended. Another finding was that behavioral issues and suspensions can start affecting students as young as six years old. ACLU Policy Associate Hillary Davis, who wrote the Blacklisted report, pointed out that the overuse of suspensions extends to the lowest grades--1,400 elementary school students were suspended last year, and 173 of them were in the first grade.
Ordonez raised other major issues echoed by Davis and Rhode Island public defender Mary McElroy, one of which was that suspensions don't work because it causes the student to be looked upon differently, as well as causing them to look at themselves differently. "The criminalizing of minority students begins in the first grade," said McElroy. "Eventually children feel less likely to feel successful, more likely to be involved in the legal justice system, and by junior high they might already be thinking about dropping out."
An emerging pattern
Brown University Family Medicine professor Dannie Ritchie, MD, MPH, also public health research and community health advocate in Providence, considered the statistics veering close to profiling, but stopped just shy of Ordonez's accusation. "I'm really talking about stereotyping," Ritchie said. "It's a perception that's endemic in our society."
In light of a similar report by the ACLU's on Tuesday that stated marijuana arrests in Rhode Island were drastically skewed toward minority residents, Ordonez said that the reason that this disproportion exists is a matter of resources. "If Johnny in an elite private school does something, there's going to be a counselor, a psychologist; there's going to be the parents involved, they and the school are going to get something special to happen for them," he said. "If the same Johnny lives in an urban, low-resource school, the teacher is overwhelmed already and they'll call an officer to come in and arrest him for the same exact thing that private-school Johnny did." That student in the low-resource school will then start to internalize those consequences, Ordonez said, as what they are fated to become later in life–in the back of a police car and eventually in prison.
Ask the right questions
The next move for Rhode Island schools, said the ACLU's Davis, is to take a good hard look at why minority students are getting suspended and why they are getting suspended at such a disproportionate rate to white students. They also need to look at the way that students are viewed when they do something an are suspended, as the suspension is a self-fulfilling prophecy of mental distress and failure. "Why would they want to go to school when they are constantly being forced out after being told how bad they are," she said.
While a statement from Commissioner of Elementary and Secondary Education Deborah Gist barely mentions any racial disparities that might be present, the Commissioner does agree that suspension is in general "an unproductive way to deal with many discipline issues." She goes on, "As part of our work with school district toward turning around the lowest-achieving schools, we are examining issues of truancy and attendance and looking closely at information from the annual student and teacher surveys. I believe this information will help us improve school climate and lower the rate of suspensions."
Related Articles
- Over 50% of Dropouts Come From Just 12 RI Schools
- NEW: Groups Slam Police Chiefs for Opposing Racial Profiling Bill
- RI Schools Spend $2 Billion—Only Half Goes to the Classroom
- NEW: Groups to March in Support of Racial Profiling Prevention Bill
- NEW: Lawmakers Unveil Racial Profiling Bill
- Racial Profiling Bill Stalled in Committee
- LISTEN: RI Schools in Need of Repair
- NEW: RI Schools Make Progress on No Child Left Behind Act but Achievement Gap Remains
- New Group: RI Schools Need to be Fundamentally Changed
