Pushout: The Criminalization of Black Girls in Schools

by Monique W. Morris

The protocol should be explicit and clearly define the actions that warrant removal from the classroom, such as fighting or threatening another student or the teacher with physical harm. The category of “willful defiance” should be eliminated by state and local governing bodies, such that schools are required to exhaust all other remedies before removing a child from school for failing to follow the rules. Instead, schools should develop an internal continuum of responses and agreements—created in partnership with students—that allow for tailored responses that promote learning and inclusion, rather than punishment and banishment.

First, schools should examine the purpose and impact of their dress codes and remove all references to hairstyles that are historically associated primarily with Black cultural traditions (e.g., dreadlocks, braids, Afros, etc.). Second, schools should seek to remedy the differential application of dress code violations by developing an objective decision-making tool that provides administrators and staff with a rubric by which to gauge the acceptability of student dress. This tool or body should be co-created with a representative group of students and then communicated via peer-led processes that facilitate student buy-in and acceptance of school norms. Champions of these policies and practices should not only be adults. Likewise, students should also help design remedies to dress code violations that do not include suspension or being sent home.

Developing a trauma-informed learning environment provides considerations for these triggers and offers protections for girls, and those who work with them, against further harm. In such environments, there is an emphasis on physical and emotional safety. For example, inappropriate touching is not just disallowed as a rule; there is also constant education of students, faculty, and staff about how to develop healthy intimate relationships that do not include unsolicited comments and touching.

Our girls need to know how to identify sexism in all its forms, how to understand the ways in which it intersects with racism to create problematic narratives about the femininity of Black girls, and how their own education and self-determination can change these narratives and the devastating effects of biased policies and practices associated with education, justice, and the economy.

Sociologist William Corsaro introduced the notion of children’s interpretive reproduction, the act of combining their peer culture with an adult-centric culture to generate new social constructs and norms, in order to explain how the social worlds of children evolve.

These girls want to talk, and they need a learning culture that encourages them to talk as part of building community in the classroom or school.12 They must be allowed to ask questions, to respectfully offer their opinion (even if it differs from the instructor’s opinion), and to learn through an extended epistemology that honors their multiple ways of knowing and learning. Stripping Black girls of the ability to ask questions and process information through dialogue is culturally incompetent and antithetical to their development as critical thinkers. It reflects a reduced expectation for learning and generates feelings of hostility and alienation.

Power at its best is love implementing the demands of justice. —Martin Luther King Jr.

Freedom is the fragile flower that must constantly be protected—not from those at the bottom of the social order but from the whims and desires of those at the top.”

♦Is there anything different about how everyone involved is seeing the situation? What is the difference? ♦What is similar about each version of the story? ♦What do I want to change about our relationship? ♦What actions will I take to change the situation between my teacher and me? What or who do I need in my corner to help me do the things I’ve agreed to do? ♦What actions has my teacher agreed to take to change the situation? Who will hold the teacher accountable? ♦How will we hold each other accountable for our agreements? Is there a written agreement? Are there regular conversations and check-ins? Do we need other people to be there for these meetings?

Why do I get so annoyed when people look at me? Sometimes, when we feel a little self-conscious, someone’s look can feel like a judgmental stare. This stare can feel rude. It can be challenging. It can be sexually provocative. People try to pretend that a look or an expression isn’t that important, but those things do matter. They matter because they give us an indication of what someone is thinking about us, and what we are thinking about ourselves. Looks have meaning, words have meaning, and physical actions have meaning—we know this instinctively. But it’s our interpretations that give them that meaning. In other words, only if you feel inadequate in some way do looks or words have a meaningful impact on your life. When you feel whole, it’s harder to be triggered by another person’s problems, issues, or judgments of you.

Restorative justice is a process by which individuals involved in a crime or harmful incident are brought together to repair their relationship.24 Rooted in indigenous paradigms of justice from the United States, New Zealand, and other world cultures, restorative justice provides an alternative structure by which to correct negative student behaviors and to build accountability and community.

Restorative justice is a paradigm that emphasizes the repair of relationships when a harmful incident has occurred. The repair of relationship(s) comes by way of tending to obligations, engaging stakeholders, using cooperative and collaborative processes, and focusing on harms and needs.

♦Who has been hurt? ♦What are their needs? ♦Whose obligations are these?28

These questions are associated with the core pillars of restorative justice: (1) a focus on harm, (2) the understanding that wrongdoing results in certain obligations, and (3) the understanding that restorative justice requires participation and engagement.29 Ada Pecos Melton has offered the view that restorative justice is an extension of the “indigenous paradigm” of justice that is based on a “holistic” philosophy, in which “a circle of justice … connects everyone involved with a problem or conflict on a continuum, with everyone focused on the same center. The center of the circle represents the underlying problems and issues that need to be resolved to attain peace and harmony for the individuals and the community.”

“I train folks on how to facilitate with very little intervention, because we read things that aren’t there,” sujatha said. “We all bring our cultural biases to whatever work that we do, and for me, the intersectionality of gender and race is powerful in terms of how we are uncomfortable when women and girls step out of the boundaries of what we think a proper girl is.… Aggression can be read into situations. If folks are going to read aggression into the [behavior of a girl], then they are limiting her full expression, which is actually damaging to restorative practice. We need to be comfortable with all of the ways that discomfort expresses itself.”

To sujatha, this remaining conflict is the perfect reason to bring the young women together in conference. “If they’re still beefing, we should lead them through a restorative process … we need an intervention. We want to bring them into the circle, but we can’t police their behavior in the circle. We’re not going to have active threats, but [we need to acknowledge] that the only way out is through.”

“It’s forced at our school, too,” said Nala. “Because after you get off suspension, you got to have a meeting with the person you got into it with and their parents … and if your parents don’t go, you still got to go.… I was talking about this with my dean … and he wants us to keep meeting and stuff and start doing volunteer work at places, like working together and stuff with the person I got into it with, just to be around each other, find out more stuff about each other and stuff.” This practice of ongoing communication is closer to the intent and practice of relationship building. I never met with the dean of Nala’s school, but it sounded like he was onto something positive.

Low self-esteem and a failure to know themselves and their cultural contributions are important to this discussion about interventions, largely because they engage the student’s learning about herself. Knowledge moves from being about others to being about self—which is the foundation for self-appreciation and love. This ancient wisdom anchors on the concept of “know thyself”—not “know others” or “know the dominant culture.”

Yejide Ankobia, a restorative justice professional and advocate whose work in the Bay Area has included girls on school campuses and in the criminal legal system, has seen this shift in worldview, though she acknowledges that building these relationships is sometimes a challenge.

The intentional use of restorative approaches to reduce contact with the justice system might also be viewed as inherently contradictory, since the primary purpose of restorative justice is to repair relationships, not necessarily to remove or deter children from contact with the juvenile justice system or formal disciplinary boards in school.64 However, it is worth noting that repairing relationships is considered an important protective factor against antisocial behaviors associated with youthful acts of aggression.