Title of Legal Clip: Mississippi district facing federal probe of allegations that its student disciplinary practices are racially discriminatory

Date and Time of Legal Clip:

Mar 16, 2016 at 9:37 a.m.

Category Filed Under:

In Equity & Discrimination Facilities, Property & School Business, Governance Student

Rights & Disicipline.

Abstract:

DeSoto County Schools is the target of a formal investigation by the U.S. Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights (OCR), reports The Commercial Appeal, after African-American parents and students filed a complaint with OCR alleging discriminatory student disciplinary practices. “For years, African-American students have been disproportionately suspended, pushed out of school and denied valuable time in the classroom due to racially discriminatory policies,” James Mathis, chairman of the local DeSoto County Parents and Students for Justice group, said. “The Department of Education’s decision to investigate DeSoto County Schools affirms the lived experiences of African-American students and their families, who have been unfairly marginalized by DeSoto County’s school-to-prison pipeline

Facts/Issues:

A March 10th letter, from OCR’s Dallas regional office, confirms it has evaluated the complaints and will open an investigation, but notes the action “in no way implies that (the civil rights office) has made a determination with regard to its merits.” Local parents, primarily African-American, initiated the complaint nearly a year ago, announcing last April, with backing from Advancement Project attorneys, that they would provide statistics and anecdotal evidence to the Department of Education in hopes of a formal investigation. Since then, education officials have looked into the matter to decide whether to proceed. The process included a local visit in December in which stories of alleged unequal treatment were collected to supplement information provided as part of the complaint. Jadine Johnson, an attorney with Advancement Project, a civil rights advocacy group, said the process will involve a review of data and interviews of school district officials. She said the most recent data available shows the district has about a 60 percent white enrollment and about 35 percent African-American. The data, according to Johnson, indicates African-American students are 2.5 times more likely to be suspended and that the suspension rates for African-Americans is “much higher” at all but one school.

Ruling/Rationale:

Johnson said students of color with disabilities are particularly at risk of inequitable treatment. “These disparities do not reflect isolated incidents, but a pattern,” Johnson said. “We believe the opening of our complaint represents the ongoing nature of these problems.” Such alleged disparities have been dubbed the “school-to-prison” pipeline because they often take students out of class and onto a path that leads to imprisonment. Similar disparities in suspension rates in the Meridian, Mississippi, school system led to a consent decree between the school district and the Department of Justice in 2013 to address the practices.

Editor Note:

In August 2015, Legal Clips summarized a story from ABC News 11 reporting that Meridian Public School District (MPSD), which two years ago settled a suit brought by the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) over MPSD’s disciplinary practices, is now being praised by DOJ for the student disciplinary program the school district put in place after the settlement. In December 2014, Legal Clips summarized an article in The Gazette reporting that according to an unnamed source at the U.S Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights (OCR), OCR’s investigation into a Cedar Rapids school district’s discipline practices was likely to conclude in the spring of 2015 with an agreement by the district to revise its policies and continued monitoring by the agency. OCR was looking into whether Cedar Rapids Community School District (CRCSD) has discriminated against African American students by disciplining them at a rate disproportionate to their percentage of enrollment.

Why I chose this case?

I choose this legal clip because its subject is the disciplinary process in the area of education. This is also because the non-discriminatory policy which is a topical issue in the United States and its territories.

What are the federal laws that apply to this case?

In educational terms some of the federal laws that apply to this case are: Civil Rights Act, Bill of Rights, FAPE law (Free Appropriate Public Education and ESSA (new law recently passed in 2015)

That the implications of this case for you as a principal?

As director of school this case makes me think about the care that we have to implement regulations because disciplinary equally perceived racial discrimination cannot be true.