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Richmond & Hampton Roads
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Call for paradigm shift in school-to-prison pipeline CHRISTINA AMANO DOLAN
CNS — Schools have become places of trauma for students of color and help reinforce centuries of systemic racism by driving students into the criminal justice system, according to speakers at a recent University of Richmond symposium. The UR School of Law hosted a six-hour event via Zoom with four presentations, nine panelists and over 200 attendees. The event featured UR law students, educators, social justice advocates and activists. Suspension and expulsion are used disproportionately against Black students, other students of color and those with disabilities, according to the U.S. Department of Education. Those punishments, along with arrests at school, often lead to students having a criminal record, according to the NAACP. The trend is known as the school-toprison pipeline. Julie McConnell, a UR law professor, said the origins of the school-to-prison pipeline is decades old. McConnell is the director of the university’s Children’s Defense Clinic, a program where law students represent indigent children in court. The school-to-prison pipeline has been an issue for many years, but it began to take hold during the “superpredator era” in the 1990s, following incidents such as the Columbine High School shooting, McConnell said. The superpredator theory centered around fear there was going to be a wave of violent
kids threatening communities and schools. The theory popularized strict zero tolerance policies in schools. “We would automatically suspend and expel kids who got in trouble in school for very minor offenses in many cases,” McConnell said. She referenced a 2015 incident in South Carolina when a school resource officer tossed a student across a classroom after she refused to surrender her cellphone. Zero tolerance policies mandate predetermined punishments for certain offenses in schools, including the possession of a weapon, alcohol or drugs, according to Shared Justice. Minor offenses often punishable by suspension or expulsion include disorderly conduct and insubordination. McConnell and other speakers discussed how punitive policies often drive students into incarceration, as some offenses previously handled within schools
are now dealt with by juvenile courts. McConnell said suspending minors results in higher rates of dropout, mental health problems, delinquency and substance abuse issues. Virginia lawmakers have worked to return punishment back to the schools. Sen. Jennifer McClellan, D-Richmond, sponsored two measures that passed the Virginia General Assembly last year. Students cannot be charged with disorderly conduct during school, on buses or at school-sponsored events. School principals no longer have to report student acts that constitute a misdemeanor to law enforcement, such as an assault on school property, including on a bus or at a school-sponsored event. Valerie Slater, executive director for the RISE for Youth Coalition, said there are disproportionate rates of suspension in Virginia. RISE for Youth is a campaign focused on dismantling the youth
prison model. Black youths from ages 15 to 17 made up 21 percent of the state’s overall population during the 2016-2017 school year, but they accounted for 57 percent of youths suspended statewide, according to a 2019 Commonwealth Institute for Fiscal Analysis and RISE for Youth report. Black teens also made up 49% percent of Virginia minors reported to juvenile courts by school authorities and 54 percent of minors detained in local jails, according to the same report. The country’s history of racial bias and discriminatory practices have enabled the school-to-prison pipeline, speakers said. One panel focused on Richmond’s history of segregated housing trends, such as the illegal practice of redlining. That is when creditworthy applicants are denied housing loans based on the applicants’ race or neighborhood where they lived. White students as a result were concentrated in wealthier suburban areas and Black students in underprivileged urban centers, said panelist Genevieve Siegel-Hawley, an associate professor of educational leadership at Virginia Commonwealth University. “We can easily see the vestiges of this history just in the way that we assign students to schools,” said panelist Kathy Mendes, a research assistant at the Commonwealth Institute for Fiscal Analysis. Mendes said children of color from under-resourced areas often attend
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