A Tulane University study finds black students are about twice as likely to be suspended from school than whites students, whether or not their offense is violent, and the suspensions tend to be longer.
Even when a fight involves both a black and a white student, the black student is more likely to be suspended longer.
In Louisiana, black and low-income students are 13 and 9 percentage points more likely to be suspended in a given year than their white and non-low-income peers, respectively. https://t.co/wGgZFk5xON #NOLAed #edchat #NOLA pic.twitter.com/pNIaczzKWq
— Era-New Orleans (@ERA_NOLA) November 21, 2017
The study report lists the key findings:
- Black students are about twice as likely as white students to be suspended, and low-income students are about 1.75 times as likely as non-low-income students to be suspended. Discipline disparities are large for both violent and nonviolent infractions.
- Disparities in suspension rates are evident within schools (black and low-income students are suspended at higher rates than their same-school peers) and across schools (black and low-income students disproportionately attend schools with high suspension rates). While across-district differences account for a small portion of the disparities, within-school and across-school differences each account for a sizable share of the disparities.
- Black and low-income students receive longer suspensions than their peers for the same types of infractions.
- For fights involving one white student and one black student, black students receive slightly longer suspensions than white students. The difference is about one additional suspension day for every 20 fights. This disparity is evident even after accounting for students’ prior discipline records, background characteristics, and school attended.
