Racial Discipline Disparities Among Students With Disabilities: Research Findings and Implications for State and Local Action

Session Type: Invited Speaker Session

Abstract

Often overlooked in the discourse on racial inequity in special education is the fact that
the most intense disparities regard the exclusion from school on disciplinary grounds. For
example, in a prior report we found that over 34% of all Black males with disabilities in
the U.S. had been suspended from school at least once in 2011-12. This new descriptive
report will review findings from the Center for Civil Rights Remedies analyzing every
district in the U.S. using the most recent Civil Rights Data Collection for 2013-14. The
analysis will compare the empirical findings, highlighting the districts with the highest
suspension rates and largest Black/white disparities (using the absolute size of the racial
gap) alongside the available data on which districts states have identified as having
significant racial disparities. States are required to identify these districts and, pursuant to
federal law, the districts must spend 15% of their federal IDEA funds to intervene. Based
on prior studies, and the fact that only half the states in the US identify any districts, the
anticipated findings will reveal that in many states, districts with excessive and disparate
discipline that is so extreme it shocks the conscience go un-flagged by their states. The
presented study will also review the desegregation court orders to explore the extent to
which these high disparity districts have a history of intentional discrimination and
resistance to desegregation orders. Civil rights and disability rights lawyers who work
with community level advocates will join researchers in the field to respond to the
findings and discuss what additional action can and should be taken at the state and local
levels to address such disparities, especially in those states that chose a definition of
significant racial disproportionality that resulted in no state action, even in the face of the
most egregious disparities. The extensive knowledge of the discussants is an important
aspect to this symposium as the goal of the research report is to inform possible legal and
legislative action at the state and local levels. If invited discussants cannot participate
equally knowledgeable discussants from the same or related organizations will take their
place.

Sub Unit

• Social Justice Action Committee

Chair

• Russell J. Skiba, Indiana University

Presenter

• Daniel Losen, University of California - Los Angeles

Discussants

• Ryan C Harris, Mary Lou Fulton Teachers College Arizona State University

• Arlene Mayerson, Disability Rights Education Defense Fund

• Dara Baldwin, National Disability Rights Network

• Ajmel Quereshi, LDF

• Dennis Parker, National ACLU