The Obama administration is encouraging school administrators to end zero-tolerance policies that civil rights advocates have long said lead to a school-to-prison pipeline that discriminates against minority students.
The American Civil Liberties Union called the recommendations "ground-breaking."
The administration said research suggests the racial disparities in how students are disciplined are not explained by more frequent or more serious misbehavior by students of color.
"We have found cases where African-American students were disciplined more harshly and more frequently because of their race than similarly situated white students," the Justice and Education departments said in a letter to school districts. "In short, racial discrimination in school discipline is a real problem."
In American schools, black students without disabilities were more than three times as likely as whites to be expelled or suspended, according to government civil rights data collection from 2011-2012.
Although black students made up 15 percent of students in the data collection, they made up more than a third of students suspended once, 44 percent of those suspended more than once and more than a third of students expelled.
Attorney General Eric Holder and Education Secretary Arne Duncan were interviewed on the Rev. Al Sharpton's radio show.
"A routine school disciplinary infraction should land a student in the principal's office, not in a police precinct," Holder said.
http://www.pbs.org/newshour/rundown/2014/01/obama-administration-recommends-ending-zero-tolerance-policies-in-schools.html
