As we recently celebrated Dr. King’s life, it is worth examining the difference in how our schools discipline black and white children. In public schools in the United States, black children are twice as likely as white children to be subject to corporal punishment.
Figure 1 shows the comparison, derived from nationwide data reported by schools to the Office of Civil Rights, Department of Education. (All data is for the 2011-2012 school year, the latest year available.) The continuing disproportionate corporal punishment of black children is a reminder that some aspects of the “bad old days” are not fully behind us.
Brookings Institution
Figure 1
The 42,000 reported incidents of black boys being beaten, and 15,000 incidents for black girls, by educators in their school reflects two facts. First, black students are more likely to be located in states that use corporal punishment extensively. Second, in many states black students are disproportionately likely to be singled out for corporal punishment. Figure 2 shows the annual incidence of corporal punishment by state, with states where the incidence is less than once per ten thousand students greyed out.
Brookings Institution
Figure 2
While corporal punishment is used in almost every state, seven states account for 80 percent of school corporal punishment in the United States: Mississippi, Texas, Alabama, Arkansas, Georgia, Tennessee, and Oklahoma. For black students, six of these states (Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia, Arkansas, Texas, and Tennessee) plus Louisiana account for 90 percent of corporal punishment. One reason that black students are subject to more corporal punishment is that they live in those states responsible for most of the corporal punishment of all children.
Where is corporal punishment racially disproportionate? Essentially, and sadly unsurprisingly, the first answer is that black students are disproportionately beaten in parts of the Deep South. Black students are twice as likely to be struck as white students in North Carolina and Georgia, 70 percent more likely in Mississippi, 40 percent more likely in Louisiana, and 40 percent more likely in Arkansas.
Figure 3 shows the ratio of the frequency of corporal punishment for black students compared to the frequency for white students, with states where the incidence is less than once per ten thousand students or where the rate is equal or lower for black students greyed out.
Brookings Institution
Figure 3
Some high corporal punishment states are not particularly racially disproportionate. Texas, notably, uses corporal punishment on black students and white with equal likelihood. Texas shows up on the lists of where black students are hit because it is a large state that administers corporal punishment at a moderately high rate.
Alabama—where the rate of corporal punishment is 10 times the national average—also shows equal rates of black and white children experiencing physical violence from educators.
In North Carolina, black students are twice as likely to be struck as white students, but North Carolina uses corporal punishment relatively infrequently and so accounts for a small proportion of punishment of black students. Notably, in South Carolina the rate of corporal punishment is below the national average and is not racially disproportionate.
While heavy use of corporal punishment is more common in states of the former Confederacy, racially disproportionate application happens in northern states as well. Schools in Pennsylvania and Michigan are nearly twice as likely to beat black children as white, although both have low overall rates of corporal punishment.
Perhaps most surprisingly, corporal punishment in Maine is wildly disproportionate—with black children being eight times as likely to be hurt as white children. Colorado, Ohio, and California also have rates of corporal punishment for black children that are 70 percent or more higher than for white children.
In Figure 4, I show rates of corporal punishment for white students on the horizontal axis and for black students on the vertical axis. States above the 45° line in Figure 2 have racially disproportionate corporal punishments. The states clustered at the lower left of the graph have relatively lower rates of corporal punishment, sometimes disproportionate and sometimes not.
Mississippi stands alone.
Brookings Institution
Figure 4
While the symbolism of continued physical violence against black children is inescapable, the disproportionate application of other forms of discipline may be of even greater concern. Except in Mississippi and Arkansas, the typical black student will probably not be subjected to corporal punishment during his school career.
In contrast, school suspensions are much more common. Figure 5 shows rates of suspension by race.
Brookings Institution
Figure 5
Note that an astounding 15 percent of black students receive an out-of-school suspension in a given year, a rate nearly 4 times that of white students; in-school suspensions are more than twice as likely among black students.
Figure 6 shows out-of-school suspension rates for black and white students by state.
Brookings Institution
Figure 6
Out-of-school suspensions are applied disproportionately in every state—all points are above the red line. And these discipline patterns do not line up with old geographic patterns. The highest suspension rates for black students are in Wisconsin. And the greatest disparities (measured as the ratio of black-to-white suspension rates) are in the District of Columbia.
Every time a child is beaten in school and every time one is suspended and thus loses learning time, something or someone has failed that child along the way, regardless of the “reason” for the punishment. So long as these failures fall disproportionately on black children, we are not yet living up to the dream that “children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.”
This piece first appeared on the Brookings Institution’s Brown Center Chalkboard blog; additional details about the data can be found at the end of the original post. Dick Startz is Professor of Economics at the University of California, Santa Barbara, and author of the book Profit of Education.
Also on HuffPost:
11 Things Black Activists Accomplished In 2015
1. Black Lives Matter leaders met with Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders.
Democratic presidential nominees Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders individually met with Black Lives Matter activists this year to discuss policing reform and racial injustice. The meetings marked significant moments which helped recognize the movement as a national political force. Both Clinton and Sanders spoke candidly about race and planned agendas to combat mass incarceration and criminal justice issues, which disproportionately affect black lives. In a separate meeting in November, mothers of slain black teens — including Trayvon Martin, Jordan Davis, Tamir Rice and Michael Brown — met with Hillary Clinton to discuss gun reform in America.
Jessica McGowan via Getty Images
1. Black Lives Matter leaders met with Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders.
Democratic presidential nominees Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders individually met with Black Lives Matter activists this year to discuss policing reform and racial injustice. The meetings marked significant moments which helped recognize the movement as a national political force. Both Clinton and Sanders spoke candidly about race and planned agendas to combat mass incarceration and criminal justice issues, which disproportionately affect black lives. In a separate meeting in November, mothers of slain black teens — including Trayvon Martin, Jordan Davis, Tamir Rice and Michael Brown — met with Hillary Clinton to discuss gun reform in America.
Jessica McGowan via Getty Images
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2. The Say Her Name Campaign raised awareness about police violence against black women.
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3. Mizzou student protests lead to university president’s resignation.
In November, black student activists at the University of Missouri rallied together to protest the racial issues that they claimed had plagued their campus for years. More than 30 black football players refused to return the football field because they were fed up with the casual, everyday forms of racism they said they faced. Days later, faculty, students and state lawmakers called for the university’s president, Tim Wolfe, to leave. One student, Jonathan Butler, courageously started a hunger strike to protest the actions of the school’s president. Wolfe promptly resigned, signaling a significant moment for student-led activism and the fight for racial equality.
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4. Campus racism protests forced schools to reckon with their racial history.
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5. Activists protested the Confederate flag and fought for its removal from public spaces.
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6. The issues of the black trans community became widely recognized.
The danger and disrespect transgender people face is part of an ongoing and difficult journey — and one that certainly does not escape trans people of color. Thanks to activists like Cherno Biko, Laverne Cox and Janet Mock, the voices of people of color in the trans community have been amplified. Mock brought national recognition to 17 tragic murders of trans women of color when she read aloud the names of these victims during a live broadcast on MSNBC in August. Black trans activists also joined forces with Black Lives Matter movement this year to ensure that all black lives matter.
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7. Black students at the University of California prompted the school to pull out $30 million from prison investments.
During this year’s fall school semester, black students at the University of California rallied together to protest the university’s controversial $30 million investment into private prisons. On Friday, the school dropped the deal after meeting with students from the university’s Afrikan Black Coalition and listening to their demands. In a detailed letter written on Nov. 30, the student group wrote that the investments were “ethically embarrassing” and that private prisons turn “black, brown and immigrant bodies into profit under the guise of rehabilitation.”
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8. The road where Sandra was stopped by police was renamed in her honor.
Two months after Sandra Bland was found dead in her jail cell, local residents rallied together to demand her legacy live on. Bland died in police custody three days after she was arrested for a traffic violation in Waller County, Texas. Her death was ruled a suicide, but her family disputed the findings and have since filed a wrongful-death suit. In August, local protesters rallied together and marched to the city council building to demand the road where Bland was pulled over be renamed in her honor. The request was approved and the road, originally named University Boulevard, was changed to Sandra Bland Parkway.
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9. Activists launched Campaign Zero to help combat police violence.
In August, key leaders of the black lives matter movement came together to create Campaign Zero, a project that aims to combat cop violence by introducing a comprehensive list of proposals for police reform. The campaign digs deep into ways police — both on the state and federal level — can reduce their racial bias, undergo better training and wear body cameras at all times to help prevent police violence against black Americans.
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10. Black musicians banded together for a benefit concert around racial inequality.
Many musicians have used their voices for much more than music. Some like John Legend and Pharrell have effectively used their talents and platforms to speak out — and sing — about the racial injustices that plague the black community. In November, some of music’s biggest and vocal stars teamed up for a one-night benefit concert on the A&E Network titled, “Shining a Light: A Concert for Progress on Race in America.” Through the power of performance, the black voices that graced the stage that night aimed to highlight how “the uncomfortable truth racial inequality and bias still impact our society.”
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11. Activists launched the Police Union Contract Project to help ‘check the police.’
Activists have been keeping busy this year to provide independent platforms to “check the police,” which is exactly what the Police Union Contract project aims to do. The project, which launched in December and was founded by four key black lives matter leaders. It aims to take a detailed look at police contracts and how they fail to hold cops accountable. The platform is part of the movement’s Campaign Zero project and helps to tackle the broader, blistering issue of police violence against black Americans.
