MORE FROM THE INDISPENSABLE CITY JOURNAL: “Students Need Consequences, Not “Restorative Justice.” And when one student is allowed to disrupt class, the other students can’t learn either.
For decades, federal bureaucrats have been telling school districts that “disparate impact” in school discipline is a violation of the regulations promulgated under Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Translation: Even though low-income African American students disrupt class at greater rates than low-income Asian or white students, these bureaucrats insist that their regulations prohibit schools from suspending them from class at that greater rate. The “solution” has been a general relaxation of discipline and more chaotic classrooms (along with a bit of punishing Asian and white students for behavior that would not be punished for African American students).
The Trump Administration is making some progress toward getting the federal government off the backs of the local districts on this issue of school discipline. But more progress is necessary. As Alison Somin and I have argued, Department of Education bureaucrats are interpreting those regulations incorrectly. Moreover, if one assumes that they are right about the interpretation, that only means the regulations go far beyond the Title VI rule making power given to executive branch by Congress. Repealing or amending those rules is necessary to prevent future left-of-center Presidents from re-starting the pressure on school districts.
And, of course, once we get the federal government off the backs of school districts, then the hard work continues: The school districts themselves need to understand that their approach to discipline has only made things worse for students of all races and ethnicities.
