children out of school in america - University of Tennessee Digital ...

Racial Discrimination in the
Use of Suspensions
It is a sad but true fact that suspensions are sometimes
a mere pretense for punishing a child for
other reasons. This is particularly true for minority
children in many schools throughout America. According
to OCR data, almost 7 percent of the
minority pupils in the five states we analyzed were
suspended at least once during the 1972-73 school
year. Over 50 percent of the students suspended in
these five states were minority, though less than 40
percent of the districts' total enrollment was minority.
Fifty percent of the 402 districts analyzed reported
suspending 5 percent or more of their black
students, but only 23 percent of the districts reported
suspending 5 percent or more of their white students.
At least 10 percent of the black students were suspended
in 100 of the districts surveyed.
OCR Director Peter Holmes' testimony corroborated
this pattern of disproportionate minority
suspensions. "In only one city of the twenty reviewed
was the percentage of minorities suspended
less than the percentage of minorities in the total
enrollment ... suspension or expulsion appears to
weigh most heavily on the minority student."48 For
example, he gave the following figures:
City
New York
Houston
Cleveland
Memphis
Dallas
Percent
Minority
Enrollment
64.4%
56.4%
59.9%
58.0%
49.4%
Percent
Minority
Suspensions
85.9%
71.0%
70.8%
70.2%
68.5%
Although most of the districts we visited had
majority white enrollments, in most of them the
majority of the students suspended were black or
members of other recognized minority groupS.49
Eight of the 15 districts 50 for which we had OCR
suspension data reported suspending 5 percent or
more of their black students. In two of the eight
-Denver and Richland County No. l-approxi-
48 Statement by Peter E. Holmes, Director, Office For Civil
Rights, Department of Health, Education and Welfare
before the Subcommittee on Equal Opportunities, Committee
on Education and Labor, House of Representatives,
Washington, D.C., May 21, 1974, p. 12.
130
mately 15 percent of the black students were suspended.
Only ,five districts reported suspending 5
percent or more of their white students.
At the secondary level the suspension of black
students was more frequent. In 5 districts over 15
percent of the black secondary students were suspended.
In Denver, 31 percent of the black secondary
students were suspended. Only 2 districts suspended
over 15 percent of their white students.
CDF survey data also show that black children
were suspended disproportionately. While 4.4 percent
of all those surveyed were suspended at least
once, 7.3 percent of the black children were suspended.
The next highest rates of suspension occurred
among Hispanic children: 4.5 percent of
Puerto Rican children and 3.9 percent of Mexican­
American children. 51
At the secondary school level, black students in
our survey were suspended more than three times as
often as white students-I2.8 percent compared with
4.1 percent. We also found 9.4 percent of the Puerto
Rican secondary students, 7.1 percent of the Mexican-American
secondary students and 1.2 percent
of the Portuguese secondary students suspended.
Among 6-17 years olds, 5.4 percent of the males
and 3.4 percent of the females were suspended.
Among secondary school suspensions, 9.8 percent
were male and 5.9 percent were female. Black
males were suspended about three times more often
than white males. Black females were suspended
over four times as often as white females.
In eight areas we surveyed, over 15 percent of the
black secondary school students were suspended, and
in six areas over 20 percent of the black secondary
school-age males were suspended. In three areas,
over 30 percent of the black males were suspended:
New Bedford Census Tract 6510 with 36 percent;
Sumter County Precinct 2 with 36 percent; and
Columbia Census Tract 5 with 35 percent. In two
areas, over 30 percent of the black secondary school-
49 Appendix R sets forth the suspension data reported to
OCR by fifteen of these districts.
"0 Two of our districts - Somerville and Portland - were
not surveyed by OCR in the fall of 1973, and thus no
suspension data were available for them.
5\ Of all the children we surveyed between the ages of 6
and 17, 39 percent were black, 45 percent were white, 8
percent were Puerto Rican, 4 percent were Portuguese and
3 percent were Mexican-American.