REINSTATING COMMON SENSE SCHOOL DISCIPLINE POLICIES

The Federal Government will no longer tolerate known risks to children’s safety and well-being in the classroom that result from the application of school discipline based on discriminatory and unlawful “equity” ideology.

 In January 2014, the Department of Education and the Department of Justice jointly issued a “Dear Colleague” letter regarding school discipline.  In that letter, the Department of Education and the Department of Justice explained that schools could be found to violate Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 — and therefore could lose Federal funding — if their disciplinary decisions ran afoul of a newly imposed disparate-impact framework under which race-neutral disciplinary policies, applied in an even-handed manner, may be improper if members of any racial groups are suspended, expelled, or referred to law enforcement at higher rates than others.  The letter effectively required schools to discriminate on the basis of race by imposing discipline based on racial characteristics, rather than on objective behavior alone. 

The consequences harmed students and schools.  A 2018 report from the Federal Commission on School Safety (Commission) noted evidence that, because of the 2014 letter, “schools ignored or covered up — rather than disciplined — student misconduct in order to avoid any purported racial disparity in discipline numbers that might catch the eye of the federal government.”  As a result, students who should have been suspended or expelled for dangerous behavior remained in the classroom, making all students less safe.