Earlier this month, USA Today published an op-ed that highlighted the need for federal guidelines that protect students of color with disabilities.
The maintenance of these guidelines is important. No, it is very important because even with the guidelines in place, we see every day how easily and frequently our children are pushed into the school-to-prison pipeline. This happens so much, it’s sadly becoming the norm for many school-age children. They witness their friends being kicked out of school so much that its becoming accepted and worse expected as part the school experience. This should not be.
Yet, the Trump administration is pushing to erase these guidelines, thus making it easier for black and brown children to eventually become lifetime members of the criminal justice system. The school-to-prison pipeline is a mirror of the criminal justice system. The only stark difference are the so-called offenders are much younger, in fact, too young to be considered misfits especially for the often-times innocuous reasons that land then there in the first place.
Without Federal guidelines, black and brown children are left wide open to have their rights and securities violated with no possible recourse. What’s dangerous about this is that approximately 80% of our nations teachers are white. Unfortunately, the journey to the school-to-prison pipeline often begins in the classroom with teachers and their implicit bias. It is those implicit biases that force them to see black and brown children’s actions different from white children who do the same things with no consequence.
I saw this first hand in my position with my local system. There was always a difference in how a child of color and white child were handled over the same instance. The punishment for the child of color was always harsher and always inequitable in comparison.
The irony about the entire school-to-prison concept is that it was created after the Columbine attacks, which by the way, only included white children as the offenders and victims. Yet, the implementation of these harsh discipline measures and the erasure the Federal guidelines will disproportionately affect children of color. Shocking right?
I am alarmed by the Trump administration for everything they do, but as the education chairperson of the Gwinnett Chapter of NAACP and as a parent of a child with a learning disability, this terrifies me. I know for a fact how easily and readily school systems violate [special education] children’s right to a free and appropriate education (FAPE), with no consequence so imagine a school system for your child that can by law violate their rights to be secure at school, all without accountability.
Last month, the Commission held a briefing: The School-to-Prison Pipeline: The Intersections of Student of Color with Disabilities. This briefing was held in response to an upcoming investigation that seeks to investigate whether districts are following guidelines that protect students of color with disabilities.
You can lend your voice to students of color with disabilities by responding to the U.S. Commission on Civil rights (USCCR) by Jan. 16 with a written testimony. Please feel free to use this sample written testimony and email it to: schooldiscipline@usccr.org.
The constant erosion of children’s rights really makes me question if integration is still the right answer. All things considered, I wonder if black and brown children would not be better off alone.