On December 18, the Trump Administration’s Federal Commission on School Safety released its recommendation to remove 2014 guidance issued by the Education Department and the Department of Justice to eliminate disparities in school discipline. This guidance came about after a comprehensive review and study and talking extensively to all stakeholders seeking to interrupt the disgraceful and disproportionate suspension of students of color and disabled students from school.
For more information on Breaking the School To Prison Pipeline, read the report DREDF authored for the National Council on Disability.
The guidance the Administration seeks to withdraw created minimum standards and basic protections for children with disabilities and other at-risk students from discriminatory practices that feed the school-to-prison pipeline. Withdrawal not only harms students, but also families, communities, and our nation. Data shows, and DREDF sees firsthand, that often students of color, foster kids and children with disabilities—many students fit into all of these categories—are subjected to the most punitive and exclusionary discipline. The administration’s regressive recommendations would reverse hard fought improvements to correct these established, irrefutable disparities.
Rather than rely on hyperbole, fear mongering, and wishful thinking the Department of Education should recommit to practices which evidence has shown makes schools safer—fair, inclusive and positive discipline, access to mental health treatment, and the integration of supports and services into every classroom. Yet instead the Trump administration is paradoxically recommending counter-productive measures that will arguably make it more difficult for schools to follow the law, and run the risk of making schools even more dangerous for both students and teachers.
We must remain vigilant.
“Despite this counter-productive about face from the Trump Administration, federal anti-discrimination laws that protect the civil rights of students with disabilities have not changed,” reminded Arlene Mayerson, Directing Attorney for the Disability Rights Education & Defense Fund. “Discrimination based on race, ethnicity, gender or disability is still against the law. The willingness of the U.S. Department of Education and Secretary DeVos to use fear tactics and subterfuge in an attempt to minimize or subvert our nation’s federal civil rights laws has not gone unnoticed, and will not go unchallenged.”