Imprisoning the next black generation
by Monique L. Dixon
Advancement Project

When our children are being arrested in our schools for "crimes" such as fighting, that used to warrant in-school detention, a short suspension or a phone call to parents, it is a sign there is a not only a failure in our school systems, but in our justice system as well. An injustice to those such as the Jena 6 is a stark example of how negligence and racial discrimination overshadow those systems and criminalize our young people.

Jena 6 refers to six Black teens charged with beating a White teen in 2006. The alleged beating came after White students hung nooses from a tree at a Louisiana high school, according to “USA Today.”

Students of color are being suspended from public schools at much higher rates than their White peers. This phenomenon, recently coined as "learning while black," adds a new, unexplored dimension to the issues of racial profiling and providing legitimate educational opportunities for poor and minority children.

The criminalization of ordinary student misbehavior is nothing new. It has been the reality of school discipline practices in America since the late 1980s when schools adopted "zero tolerance" policies. But, states and school districts took the notion to new extremes by passing laws that required the suspension or expulsion of students for the possession and/or use of any weapon, drug, or the commission of other serious violations on or off school grounds. With many school discipline policies written in ambiguous language, it has been left up to administrators to judge on a case-by-case basis what could be deemed a serious violation.

The alleged school fight between the Jena 6 and a White student was the culmination of a series of incidents that exposed racial tensions within a small town that serves as a microcosm of America's racial injustices, and all that could go wrong in the administration of school discipline policy.

The problem is clear. Many school administrators have the statutory authority to exercise discretion in cases that do not involve guns, drugs or assaults on the faculty. Instead, they are choosing to have elementary school children arrested for playing with paper guns.

Something has to be done to reverse the highly destructive trend of throwing children out of school for acting like children. Guns, weapons and drugs should never be allowed onto school grounds, yet in the aftermath of the Columbine tragedy, for many minority students, fighting, not doing your homework and other nebulously defined infractions could get them kicked out of school and landed in the juvenile justice system.

We should ask ourselves what safeguards are in place to prevent a disproportionately doled out, reactionary punishment instead of using discretion? Clearly, there will be less sympathy for the "foul-mouthed," disruptive child, and some would argue that is the way it should be. In other words, imperfect children do not deserve a chance for redemption or an opportunity to improve themselves –just throw them to the police and the problem is handled.

Civil rights and racial justice organizations such as Advancement Project have come to understand that it requires collective action to stop these immoral acts of incarcerating our youth.

Zero tolerance policies seem reasonable as a matter of school safety, and would be acceptable if they were applied to only those serious offenses they were intended to punish - firearms and drug offenses. And, if they were applied to all students equally, no matter their race or ethnic origin or socio-economic status. But, school districts across the country went to extremes when they teamed up with law enforcement to create another educational track in this country's schools - the "schoolhouse to jailhouse track" - by imposing two doses of punishment: suspensions or expulsions and a trip to juvenile court - for what used to be considered acts of typical adolescent misconduct. Therefore, handcuffing a 5-year-old girl for having a temper tantrum in her St. Petersburg, Fla., school and the egregious incidents in Jena are more the rule than the exception.

Don't be fooled; what went on in Jena is not an isolated incident.

Author Monique L. Dixon is a senior attorney with Advancement Project, a Washington-based racial justice organization. www.advancementproject.org