"We Are Our History”: Historicizing Current Black-White Disparities in Exclusionary Discipline

Session Type: Symposium

Abstract

Current racial disparities are a product of our history. Yet the historical antecedents of Black-white disproportionality in school discipline have been under-examined and under-theorized. Although contemporary accounts often trace the origins of discipline disparity to the 1990s zero tolerance era, racialized disparities in exclusionary school discipline are part of a larger school-to-prison nexus with roots in earlier historical eras. This session will explore the history of inequality in school discipline with a focus on the origin and growth of Black-white suspension disparities that first unfolded during the initial period of school desegregation (e.g, between approximately 1954 and 1980). The session will bring together historical and contemporary scholarship to illuminate throughlines to today’s racial disparities in exclusionary school discipline.

Sub Unit

• Division L - Educational Policies and Politics / Division L - Section 7: Social Context and Structural Inequalities

Chair

• Russell J. Skiba, Indiana University

Papers

• Forgotten Histories: A Systematic Review of Research on Black-White Disparities in Exclusionary School Discipline - Kathryn E. Wiley, Howard University; Joshua Middleton, Howard University

• Echoes of Little Rock: Disproportionate Discipline as Second- and Third-Generation Segregation - Ashley L. White, University of Wisconsin - Madison

• Desegregated but Still Separated? Impacts of School Integration on Student Suspensions and Special Education Classification - Mark Chin, Vanderbilt University

• Suspending Education: Resistance to Desegregation and School Suspension in Delaware - Aaron Kupchik, University of Delaware

• Resurfacing the History of OCR (Office of Civil Rights) Data Collection: Statistical Disparity and Education Policy - Matt Kautz, Eastern Michigan University

Discussant

• Brenda L. Townsend Walker, University of South Florida