Examining Federal Investigations of Racial Discrimination in School Discipline

• In Event: Promising Scholarship in Education Research: Dissertation Fellows and Their Research

Abstract

Examining Federal Investigations of Racial Discrimination in School Discipline

Despite decades of literature highlighting racial disparities in exclusionary discipline and a flurry of recent policy efforts aimed at narrowing gaps, racial disparities in discipline remain. One understudied policy mechanism aimed at narrowing racial disparities is the use of federal enforcement of anti- discrimination laws through the U.S. Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights (OCR). While federal intervention has played an important role historically in protecting students’ civil rights, whether OCR enforcement of civil rights law today has any effect on racial inequalities remains an open question. My dissertation will address this gap using a newly available dataset with information on all OCR complaints of racial discrimination in school discipline between 1999 and 2019 combined with a number of existing data sources. I use an event-study design that relies on variation in the timing of being investigated to estimate the effect of OCR initiating a civil rights investigation on discipline rates and racial disparities in discipline and achievement. Preliminary findings suggest no impact of the initiation of a civil rights investigation on school districts’ discipline rates, racial discipline gaps, and racial test score gaps. This project provides the first quasi- experimental evidence on the effect of federal investigations on student outcomes and racial disparities. The results of this study also contribute to the emerging body of research aimed at identifying effective legal or policy remedies to narrow racial discipline gaps.

Author

• Rachel M. Perera, Pardee RAND Graduate School