Criticism Of Zero Tolerance Policies

A criticism of zero tolerance policies is that they disproportionately impact students of color. When school suspension and expulsion rates represent minority students at higher rates than their white, non-Hispanic, counterparts, a racial disparity exists. For example, suspending 1.2 million black students from K-12 nationally during 2011-2012, yet more than half of occurring within 13 states in the South. Likewise, expelling 50 percent of black students enrolled in those states, that same year [citation]. Nonetheless, years of racial segregation, discrimination and the overall mistreatment of minorities in the public, however, have influenced this disparity trend. Although representing 18 percent of enrolled students in school, black students accounted for 35 percent of those suspended once, 46 percent of those suspended more than once and 39 percent of all expulsions nationally, during 2009-2010 [citation].

Unfortunately, seeing the disparity as early the pre-school level. For example, suspending roughly half of all black preschool children, yet only represent 18 percent of preschool enrollment [citation]. Accordingly,

Despite higher rates of school suspension and expulsion for students of color, research reveals that students of color receive disciplinary action more frequently for ambiguous and vague offenses, while white students face disciplinary action for clearly defined offenses [citation]. For example, white students faced suspension for more provable offenses such as smoking or leaving school without permission; while black and Hispanic students faced suspension for more subjective reasons, such as disrespect or excessive noise levels [citation]. Moreover, finding racial differences in suspension for non-threatening behavior such as defiance [citation]. As such, when student's of color misbehave, its more often criminalized than