Students of color get punished by teachers more than their white peers. Black children are over-punished and over-policed, according to the Greenlining Institute. All the studies
And lawmakers on Capitol Hill recently examined school discipline disparities.
“Congressman Bobby Scott is using his position as chairman of the Education and Labor Committee to fight back against the Trump administration, which is eliminating Obama-era guidance to limit racial disparities in school discipline,” WVTF reported.
“And, the guidance showed how you could reduce those disparities without jeopardizing school safety. As the White House and courts continue to push us in the wrong direction,” says Scott. “Congress cannot sit on the sidelines. The stakes are too high.”
There have been example after example as of late. “After a Halloween incident described as racial, a teacher in Albuquerque, NM, was fired after she cut a Native American girl’s hair,” WLBT reported.
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Cibola High School language arts teacher Mary Jane Eastin was fired Dec. 3 after cutting about three inches of hair from a Native American girl who had her hair in braids. Eastin also called another Native student a racial epithet. In another incident, the teacher also allegedly coerced students into eating dog food as part of a quiz reward and punishment system, according to an ACLU account.
Navajo President Russell Begaye condemned the teacher’s “cultural assault.”
“Our Native youths should not have to endure this kind of behavior, especially in the classroom. We will hold the teacher, the school and the district accountable for these actions, and we demand recourse,” he said in a news release.
The ACLU of New Mexico criticized the Albuquerque Public Schools’ response to the teacher’s “battery” of students.
“Anyone with even an iota of cultural awareness knows that in Native American cultures hair is sacred – particularly for women. Some Native American tribes hold hair cutting ceremonies and some only cut hair to honor the loss of loved ones. Beyond that, the cruel implications of Ms. Eastin’s actions harken back to the era of Native American boarding schools, when the cutting of Native students’ hair was a form of punishment inflicted by school masters in a racist attempt to strip children of their heritage and culture,” the organization said.
In a separate incident, a Black wrestler was forced to cut his dreadlocks instead of forfeiting his match.
In New Jersey, a wrestling official required an African-American grappler from Buena Regional High School to cut his dreadlocks or forfeit his bout.
Many say the white referee’s actions were racially motivated; others say he was following the rules.
A video surfaced of the incident and in it, junior Andrew Johnson had to agree to have his dreads cut before his bout; if he hadn’t, he wouldn’t have been able to wrestle.
This wasn’t the first time the actions of Official Alan Maloney were called into question. He made headlines two years ago after using a racial epithet to describe a fellow referee.
“Maloney has been barred from officiating meets pending investigations by the NJSIAA and the New Jersey Division of Civil Rights,” the Courier-Post reported.
In turn, the official has filed a legal claim alleging defamation of character.
