OPINION:
As Devon Westhill notes, the Biden administration shouldn’t pressure schools to “reduce” discipline just to shrink “racial gaps” in suspension rates (“Going soft on Black children’s misbehavior is the wrong policy prescription,” Web, July 18).
Keeping disruptive or violent students in class prevents their classmates from learning and enjoying school. A study by the Manhattan Institute found that Black kids suffer most when schools curb discipline in order to cut Black suspension rates. That’s because the victims of Black offenders are typically innocent Black people. For example, “violent crime” is disproportionately Black-on-Black, and is committed mostly against members of the perpetrator’s own race, according to the Bureau of Justice Statistics.
It is also wrong for government officials to order schools to cut discipline rates for particular races. In 1997, an appeals court struck down a rule against referring “a higher percentage of minority students than of white students for discipline,” and ruled that was an unconstitutional racial quota.
HANS BADER
Arlington, Virginia
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