Discipline or Disrespect? Disparities in school discipline is highlighted through the experiences of students and local race experts

Two days lunch detention. That’s the punishment then-middle-schooler Gigi Smith got for swearing at her white classmate after they pulled her braids, hit her and called her the N-word.

“If there’s an instance with a Black kid and a white kid, the first person to be pulled aside would be the Black kid,” now-senior Smith said. “There’s nothing you can really do [as a Black student]. You’re going to be punished more than anyone else.”

This isn’t the only instance of racial discipline disparity in SMSD or at East. It’s administrative discipline like Smith’s case, teachers constantly telling freshman Addi Hall that she’s being “too loud” while talking at the same volume as her white peers or even a substitute teacher only calling out junior Jax Taylor for using his phone in a class full of white classmates doing the exact same thing.

In cases like these, this isn’t just a feeling of being marginalized — it’s more. Student experiences like those above often echo national findings suggesting students of color are unfairly and disproportionately targeted in school discipline.

At East, Black students accounted for 10.3% of in-school suspensions despite only making up 1.8% of the school enrollment in 2017, according to the most recent Civil Rights Data Collection which is typically collected 2-3 years and published around every 6-8 years. Similarly, Hispanic students made up only 6.5% of enrollment but also 10.3% of in-school suspensions. In a survey of 26 East students of color, 54% said they felt unfairly targeted by their teachers compared to their white peers.

These findings urge students of color to share their firsthand experiences with racial bias in school discipline in hopes of sparking change and shedding light on the issue, while local race experts see this startling trend of minority over-discipline in our public schools and raise their concerns as well as offer solutions.

Smith’s experience with unfair discipline is part of the reason why she started C.O.R.E club at East — a place to address pressing racial issues like these, learn about culture and create a more welcoming environment for all races.

“I didn’t really like how there wasn’t really much inclusivity for different races and I just didn’t really feel welcome [at East],” Smith said. “So I just thought that something like a club where people of any race can come together and talk about their experiences [would help].”

Similarly, Race Project KC coordinator and English teacher Samantha Feinberg began leading DEI seminars for teachers with her colleague, former East teacher and Race Project KC founder David Muhammad, before the district officially adopted and required training in 2020. The DEI training takes place during professional development days to address racial inequity at East. Race Project, Feinberg’s other passion, allows students to support each other on race-related issues like unfair discipline.

“When students observe things that are inequitable, Race Project often gives them the language to express themselves or the courage to express themselves on issues that weigh on their minds taking place in their schools,” Feinberg said. “And then kind of the other side of that —  Diversity Equity Inclusion training with staff — we talk about how to be more equitable when it comes to everything, including behavior management.”

Muhammad noticed similar issues of implicit racial bias in discipline during his nine years at East from 2010 to 2019.

Coaches slipping racist comments, teachers being quicker to write up a Black student for minor infractions or administrators automatically suspending a Black student in a fight instead of their white counterpart are all forms of racial disparities in education that he, Smith and Hall have all witnessed at East. 

“[Racial bias] is even something as simple as saying ‘You guys are being too loud in the hallway’ or if you’re considered to be ‘talking back to a teacher’ when another student would be seen as just speaking up,” Muhammad said.

On several occasions, he remembers students of color asking for advice on issues with certain teachers or coaches who they felt reprimanded more Black students for the same infractions as their white peers. Though unfair, Muhammad advised the students to “play the game” and comply with teachers to get through the class.

This implicit bias that Muhammad has seen manifest itself in Shawnee Mission classrooms is often a result of a lack of diversity, according to Ryan Sorrell, executive director and founder of Kansas City-based Black news media organization The Kansas City Defender.

In the past year, the Defender reported on more than 15 instances of disproportionate or unfair discipline against Black students in local schools. In November 2022, a Black Olathe West student physically fought his white classmate for his repeated use of the N-word. The white student received no school punishment while the Black student was expelled, the Defender reports — an example Sorrell cites as a dangerous consequence of racism in these majority-white schools.

“There’s a normalization of white supremacy and anti-Black racism [in Shawnee Mission schools],” Sorrell said. “I think that is the case with every school that is predominantly white. At the end of the day, what we’re seeing large-scale trends across the entire state and really across the entire country right now is an attack on Black education.”

In fact, a 2020 Harvard study finds that the implicit biases of teachers vary significantly by the race of the individual, and that white teachers working at less-diverse schools have more significant anti-Black biases.

“[White teachers] can lack the sensitivity or empathy to, a lot of the times, realize that sometimes a minority student can be targeted subconsciously, without [the teacher] realizing it,” Hall said.

This bias, Muhammad says, is the main issue. While reported statistics of over-disciplining minority students are alarming, he says we should pay attention to how implicit bias plays such a large role in classrooms. Since it can be as simple as a passive chastising comment or being quicker to raise their voice at a Black student, Muhammad points out that these microaggressions often go unreported and untracked.

He adds that people mistakenly blame administration for their role in discipline while ignoring the root issue of implicit bias that infiltrates the classroom and office alike. During his nine years at East, Muhammad felt that the administrators at the time, Dr. John McKinney and Dr. Susan Leonard, worked especially hard to make discipline fair and equitable — regularly attending DEI meetings or calling in Muhammad to get his input on how to move forward with discipline issues involving students of color. 

Currently, the school plan for discipline is outlined in a discipline matrix — a district-created plan for enforcing rules — based on the student handbook’s rules. Teams of administrators collaborate to form an individualized plan for each infraction. This case-to-case system is designed to eliminate any bias in discipline, according to Principal Jason Peres. 

“Essentially, what our policies and guidelines and procedures allow us to do is to treat everyone the same,” Peres said. “And I think we do an excellent job of that. Now understand, even though we’re treating everyone the same, consequences aren’t always the exact same. [Though] no two infractions are exactly the same, you’ll find that we’re very consistent.”

However, bias is still ever-present in the classroom, despite administrative efforts, according to Muhammad. In fact, Implicit bias at its extreme, he and Feinberg say, is a direct cause of the school-to-prison pipeline — a system in American public schools that conditions students of color to make them more likely to become incarcerated as adults. Youth who are suspended or expelled get funneled out of public schools and into juvenile and criminal legal systems, according to the American Civil Liberties Union.

Feinberg cites the fact that students who are suspended are three times more likely to drop out, making them five times more likely to become incarcerated later down the road. How the pipeline connects to race lies in the suspension rates of minority students. Black students are 3.2 times more likely to be suspended or expelled, Native American students are two times more likely and Hispanic students are 1.3 times more likely, according to a 2018 report by the Government Accountability Office. 

“Generally, we see those numbers track over into the same racial disparity for legal offenses later down the road,” Feinberg said. “[The school-to-prison pipeline] is just the idea that some of our school policies — instead of making it less likely that a student ends up in jail — sometimes make it more likely.”

Currently, the district requires DEI professional learning for all teachers to attend just like other education seminars. This is a step in the right direction, Sorrell says, as educators minimizing implicit biases makes it so they don’t have to rely on stereotypes to understand students’ cultures — a large part of the issue.

“Many people in leadership, whether it’s superintendents, principals or teachers, often have very little cultural competency,” Sorrell said. “As a result, even people who mean to do well oftentimes cause great harm in these districts and don’t know how to properly create safe environments for Black students. And as a result a lot of violence in these districts is inflicted on Black students.”

Going forward, Sorrell wants accountability for people in positions of power, mandated DEI education for all educators and administrators, as well as more people of color in such administrative positions. Muhammad advocates for restorative practices in schools. Hall just hopes for a basic level of respect to be given to all students, regardless of race.

“[Respect] is about trying to find a better way to deal with punishments for all,” Hall said. “A level of respect, which is commonly not felt by a lot of the minority students, should be given to every student, no matter race, creed, sexuality, anything.”