Summary Of The Critical Race Theory Of School Discipline

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The enforcement and structure of school discipline reflects the Critical Race Theory of the relationship between law and society because of the inequality of the school-to-prison pipeline, and restorative justice shows the power of applying the theory. Critical Race Theory is about race’s role in the legal system and society. It argues that since slavery and racist ideas, the idea of race in general has been socially constructed. These racist ideas, while they have become less explicit now, have lasting effects. Law, since it was created at the time of significant racism, contains the idea of race and uses it in unequal racist laws. While the worst of these have gone away, there remain undertones of racism and indirect racist laws. These racist …show more content…

Microaggressions are remarks that imply a racist and offending idea, such as a small mean assumption or disregard, while not being the conscious point of what someone may be saying, they are when a remark from someone of prejudice turns into a racist statement. School discipline in today’s society is a topic of discussion because of its troublesome history of and current racist effects–such as the “school-to-prison pipeline.” It works like this: students of color are disproportionately affected by putative school discipline, especially since the increase of “school resource officers” —police officers within schools. As a result, students of color are more likely to be put into the criminal justice system (2016 Cohen). In addition, an increasing volume of suspensions worsened this issue. Since the 70s, many schools applied “zero-tolerance” policies requiring suspensions for certain offenses, leading to significantly more suspension overall, with rates nearly doubling from 1973 to 2006. These rates also exacerbated Pelenur 2 inequality, with Black students roughly four times as likely to be suspended as white students (2014, Department of Education Office for Civil Rights; 2018 …show more content…

In its application to school discipline, CRT makes it clear that there are a plethora of problems. Restorative justice is the result of light being shed on these problems. Highline Public Schools, a racially diverse district that embraced restorative justice in 2013, more than halved their suspensions in three years. Highline also found that since the change, their students take more AP classes, graduate more, and there is less suspension and graduation disproportionality for underrepresented students (2018 Dorio). It is no surprise that an attempt at solving the issues brought up by CRT, even a rough attempt and first try, will show great improvement to equality within the system. This is because the root of the inequality is the system, and actions need to be taken to change it. In this case, a simple reform would not solve the problem in schools. The entire system of school discipline needs to completely

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