Pushout: The Criminalization of Black Girls in Schools

by Monique W. Morris

A BLUES FOR BLACK GIRLS WHEN THE “ATTITUDE” IS ENUF

For two decades, the nation has been enthralled in a punitive whirlwind that has reshaped how educators respond to students, how administrators understand and interpret adolescent misbehavior, and how institutions respond to the learning needs of children in high-poverty schools. For their part, women and girls experience multiple ways of knowing.15 They gather information not only from what people (adults and peers) tell them but also from experiences, symbols, and metaphors that are woven into the tapestry of their environments.16 Black girls notice the verbal and nonverbal cues that signal what they are supposed to do and be in life, and they are astute enough to realize when the learning environment is producing something other than its stated goal of educating children. What is often being produced creates a climate so hostile that it pushes girls out of school, and so toxic that it is giving us all an attitude.

In Wisconsin, which produced the highest suspension rate for Black girls in 2011–12, no Black girls were referred to law enforcement directly.28 However, digging a little deeper into the numbers reveals a dire situation. During that time, the truancy rate for the Milwaukee Public Schools (MPS)—the metropolitan area with the highest incidence of African American poverty in the United States—was 81 percent.29 In 2013–14, Black students were 56 percent of students enrolled in MPS, and 83 percent of students considered habitually truant.30 The truancy rate for female students in MPS was nearly 53 percent and for Black female students, it was 68 percent—the highest rate among all students.31 In Madison, where more than 74 percent of Black children live in poverty, where Black females are almost six times more likely to be unemployed than their White counterparts, and where Black youth are more than nine times more likely to be habitually truant than their White counterparts, the arrest rate for Black youth is six times the rate for White youth.

In the twenty years that followed the implementation of the GFSA, Black girls have become the fastest-growing population to experience school suspensions and expulsions, establishing them as clear targets of punitive school discipline.

“Decades after legal battles were fought to dismantle legalized racial segregation in education, African American students are still disproportionately enrolled in schools without access to quality resources, credentialed teachers, rigorous course offerings, and extracurricular activities.33 In Black Girls Matter: Pushed-Out, Overpoliced and Underprotected, a report by the African American Policy Forum, it was noted that Black girls are expelled from New York schools at fifty-three times the rate for White girls and resort to acting out (using profanity, fighting, having tantrums, etc.) when their counseling needs are ignored.34 Why?

Chicago Public Schools is the third-largest school district in the United States, with more than six hundred schools serving about four hundred thousand children.36 With a student population that is 39 percent African American, 46 percent Hispanic, and 9 percent White, Chicago Public Schools is composed primarily of youth of color.37 Chicago is now in the arduous process of dismantling zerotolerance policies; however, it will take decades to unravel the legacy of punishment and reduce the Black student marginalization produced by years of relying on exclusionary discipline.

“I graduated in 2010,” Michelle continued. “It felt like you were always being watched, like, as if we were going to do something, and I felt like it was favoritism with people in the schools—especially coming from security guards. . . . The same actions would take place, but different people would get different consequences. . . . And the whole police station in the school, and everything . . . it wasn’t the space for that, and I just didn’t understand why they would put something like that in place.” “I went to [that school] too,” said eighteen-year-old Leila. “The crazy thing for me is, school [in a more affluent neighborhood] was not like jail. I could walk the halls. I was going outside. I was cool with all the police. When the counselor took me in, I was making good grades, so she was just like, ‘Just go to class.’ I went to [another school]—an all-Black school as well, but it’s in [a high-poverty neighborhood] and they had stricter security. Everybody was in class because we couldn’t just roam the halls. . . . At [the high-poverty school], they had metal detectors. At this [more affluent] school, we didn’t. I could have more freedom.” Metal detectors, security guards checking bags, and police patrolling the hallways of high schools might have become the norm for the young women who were in conversation with me that summer, but it wasn’t always this way.

Seen as a “new type of public servant; a hybrid educational, correctional, and law enforcement officer,” SROs were defined as “law enforcement officers who engage in community-oriented policing activities and who are assigned to work in collaboration with schools and community-based organizations.”

Research on the impact of SROs has found that the presence of SROs in schools has contributed to the formal processing of youth into the justice system. A 2011 study by criminologists Chongmin Na and Denise Gottfredson found that schools with SROs record more crimes that involve weapon and drugs, but they also report more nonserious crimes to law enforcement—thereby expanding the reach of the criminal justice system, a practice that is referred to as “net-widening”: “For no crime type was an increase in the presence of police significantly related to decreased crime rates. The preponderance of evidence suggests that, to the contrary, more crimes involving weapons possession and drugs are recorded in schools that add police officers than in similar schools that do not. The analyses also showed that as schools increase their use of police officers, the percentage of crimes involving non-serious violent offenses that are reported to law enforcement increases.”

For example, Victor, a dean of students for a school in California, spoke with me about having to work with officers on his campus to get them to understand that the school was trying to operate as a family. Victor described how one officer would routinely tell students who misbehaved, “It’s time”—a phrase that was intended to communicate with students, for whom enrollment at this alternative school was one of their last chances to salvage a high school experience, that it was time to drop out of school. Victor made several efforts to remind this officer that on their campus, his role was to secure the location and ensure that students were not presenting a physical threat—not to advise them of when to drop out. Still, this officer, according to the dean, resorted to the use of verbal threats that reflected his desire to remove certain students from the school for good. The presence of law enforcement (including school resource officers, school-based probation officers, security officers, and others) has been cited as one of the largest contributing factors to the increased rates of student citations in schools.

The presence of law enforcement in schools has instead blurred lines between education and criminal justice, as daily exchanges and interactions with law enforcement expand the surveillance of youth of color and normalize prison terminology (and culture) in school settings.

In this context, even asking a question can be seen as misbehavior, depending on the tone.

“For me that was the norm,” said Leila. “I just thought that’s how school was. I actually like low-key did feel halfway protected because a girl had got sliced in the throat with a blade. And we did have a lot of fights and stuff. And so for me, I used to just walk in, put my book bag on, and boom . . . I didn’t really link it to jail or nothing like that; I just thought it was the norm, it was a lot smoother, and I still wasn’t scared. I thought I’d be a lot more nervous, but [I wasn’t]. . . . I just thought that’s how school was, like ‘Ain’t this how it’s supposed to be?’ Then you go to another school and be like, ‘Dang . . . that’s how y’all learn.’ True . . .” Leila paused to mimic looking around the room in awe, with her eyes and mouth open as if in shock at the new environment. The young women laughed, but there was something more to be said about the different—separate and unequal—learning spaces that were provided for concentrations of poor Black and Brown children, as compared to their more affluent counterparts. Her mention of feeling “low-key . . . halfway protected” by security in school because of the threat of physical violence was part of her inability to envision an alternative. For her, surveillance was a typical strategy used to provide safety in school, as opposed to building a collective culture that elevates safety through equity and respect. This is the principle that was most elevated in her comparison between what she observed in her original school...

“They’ll focus on the ones that have it already, whereas if you don’t, they’ll just leave you be,” Michelle said. “When they come at you like you should know it already, it’s like, mmm . . . should I know it already? You know, you shy away from even opening your mouth.”

“I was the kid who was quiet, who was paying attention, but not necessarily asking questions. It was like, talk when you’re spoken to . . . or be seen and not heard,” Michelle chimed in. When girls spoke out of turn, they were often seen as disruptive. “I was the type that asked questions,” Leila said. “Because I understood that the class didn’t get it. You can feel it. So I’m one of those students that’s like, ‘So you subtract the four from both sides, right?’ And he’ll say yes, and you can hear people be like, ‘Oh.’” “That’s what’s up,” Nala said. That’s what’s up among the students, because they were searching for understanding but not always getting it from their teacher. To some, Leila’s willingness to speak up might be misinterpreted as being disruptive, though she saw herself as being helpful to the other students. The audacity to stand up and be heard in the face of fierce patriarchy and racial oppression is not always celebrated; instead, adults with authority have misinterpreted it as being angry and combative.

I asked the girls in Chicago what issues or actions have set them off in the past. In response, they identified several triggers: “a look,” “the way you look at [us],” “boys,” “talking behind each other’s back.” “That’s the main thing. ‘I heard you was talking about me,’” Nala said loudly. “People hyping the situation up,” Michelle offered. “Especially the boys . . . but the security guards and the teachers get in it too,” said Nala. I wasn’t expecting that one. “Yeah, the security guards are the worst, though,” Michelle said. “Because the security guards will get cool with the students, and then they’ll get to talking to them about the situation and then go back and tell.” “And that’s how the fight starts,” Nala said. “So what happens when there’s a fight?” I asked. “Then the security guard will break it up and get them suspended,” Michelle said. “After they done hyped this all up . . . they live for fights, so they can have a job to do.”

“They break it up when they feel like breaking it up, though,” Leila said. “They’ll sit there and watch the fight for a little while and then they’ll do their job . . . so they can have something to talk about.”

Chicago Public Schools eliminated recess for its elementary and middle school students in 1991.62 In 1998, the district implemented a policy that granted school administrators the discretion to choose whether or not to allow recess. This resulted in two-thirds of Chicago schools opting for a “closed campus,” which means that for nearly twenty-five years, there have been children attending Chicago public schools who have never experienced school recess. This practice was condemned by the American Academy of Pediatrics, the National Association of Early Childhood Specialists in State Departments of Education, the Alliance for Children, and many others.63 Still, the decision has been left to the discretion of the schools in the country’s third-largest school district, and many administrators have opted out, perceiving recess as a “waste of time.”64 For the students, this meant they had limited time to take a break, release, and reset. “It went from learning all day, going to your prep, and then you leave,” said Michelle.

“Now that’s when you talk the most . . . they want you to sit at a table,” Leila said. “I been wanting to tell her something since nine o’clock! . . . It’s not just ’cause they’re Black. If you’re born poverty-stricken, you ain’t got no recess. The only time to talk is during lunch or after school. Y’all ain’t got no sports. Y’all ain’t got no activities. You don’t have nothin’ to be proud of at your school. You ain’t paint nothing on the walls, or participate in nothing. You just coming from nine [o’clock] . . . to four or three-thirty.” For these girls, the ways in which the learning spaces of children were designed to prepare students for a lifetime of institutionalization was shamelessly transparent.

These are conditions that facilitate agitation and aggression, undermine student performance in class, and lead students to question why they are coming to school at all.

As discussed in Chapter 1, without intentional efforts to combat old ways and norms, schools routinely function as institutions that reproduce dominant social ideas, hierarchies, and systems of oppression. Schools that approach learning as an exercise in classroom management are often preoccupied with discipline—exclusionary discipline, to be exact.

In 2005, Hurricanes Katrina and Rita raged through the Gulf Coast, exposing one of the nation’s blind spots regarding inequality. Prior to these devastating hurricanes, New Orleans was home to 124 public schools that were part of three distinct school systems. Of these schools, 117 operated under the governance of the Orleans Parish School Board, 5 were under the governance of the Louisiana Recovery School District (a special statewide district created to take over “failing,” schools), and 2 were independent charter schools.67 The hurricanes not only devastated the personal property of many New Orleans residents but also severely damaged schools—at least forty-five schools suffered sewage and flood damage.68 Affected by displacement and ongoing efforts to rebuild after the hurricane, New Orleans reorganized its entire education scheme. As of August 2014, there were eighty-three schools, seventy-six of which were charter schools, most of which were under a new school system: the Recovery School District.

In discussions in New Orleans, Chicago, New York, Boston, Northern and Southern California, and other places where I have spoken with girls about “bad” behavior, Black girls have shared that their “attitude” is often a reaction to feeling disrespected. At times that reaction is verbal, and at other times the reaction is physical. However, it is important to understand these reactions in context. People who have been harmed are the ones who harm others. When Black girls are perceived to be lashing out against others and themselves, what’s happening can’t be understood without an illumination of what brought them to that place.

While teacherstudent relationships are paramount and teachers taking time to know their students as whole people can make all the difference, not every teacher or school official can possibly be expected to be familiar with the particular journeys and backgrounds of each student. What can (and should) be developed and nurtured in educational settings, but almost never is, is a deeper awareness of the numerous social factors—related to race, gender, sexuality, disability status, or other identities—that have the power to trigger Black girls and shape their interactions with people in schools.

In my conversations with girls and young women across the country, it became clear Black girls interpreted their attitude not as a stagnant expression of anger and dissatisfaction. Rather, it lived along a continuum of responses to disrespectful or degrading triggers in their lives—many of which were present in their learning environments. From the hundreds of scenarios that were collected as part of this exploration, specific themes emerged about what was triggering an “attitude” among Black girls. Most common was the notion that an “attitude” was provoked by incidents of disrespect. In other words, these girls saw the “attitude” as a response to suggestions (overt or implicit) that their identity was an inferior one. This was shared with me in different cities, by very different young women between the ages of fifteen and twenty-three, but the theme was consistent.

“[My school is] predominantly White,” she said. “Okay, I’m terrible in math. So when little Suzie gets the question wrong, it’s like, ‘Aww . . . you got the question wrong.’ It’s funny. When I get a question wrong, it’s like, ‘Oh, she’s slow. What’s wrong with her?’ I get so angry, number one, because I already told them I’m bad at math. Number two, because I’m not slow. Like, don’t call me slow at all. I take my education seriously. Do not call me slow. That’s why I’m at school, to learn. . . . That triggers it. It does not only make me want to fight them, it makes me want to . . . it makes me want to ask them, why would they say something like that? The fact that I’m the only Black kid in the school, it’s like, ‘Oh, are we back in the 1950s now?’”

Shai’s identity as “the only Black kid in the school” produced a degree of anxiety that she would be received as embodying a lower status than her White counterparts.

Shai’s negative reaction is more than just a response to the teasing of her peers. It is also in response to the absence of teasing when her White counterpart gets the problem wrong. Suzie is allowed to make mistakes without being labeled as “slow,” but Shai is not. It is the unfairness that triggers Shai, not just her personal frustration about the difficulty of math.

Malaika’s narrative reflects the complicated nature of speaking one’s truth as a Black girl in the United States. The messages that she received regarding her duty to speak up and the reactions to her resistance to an oppressive silence or humiliation were confusing. They would be for any of us! As with Shai, the absence of fairness underscores Malaika’s desire to speak up, but it was her resistance to being marginalized, to being physically placed in the corner, that set her off. Malaika was aware of how being placed in a corner is both a punishment for individual behavior and also a warning to other children about what might happen to them if they engage in similar behavior. Malaika was fundamentally trying not to become the symbol of “bad behavior”—particularly since she felt that she was speaking her truth. It is the idea that her truth has no place in the classroom that triggers Malaika.

Dee was aware of her vulnerability and the stigma that followed her as a Black female student with a physical disability. Her trigger was ridicule—whether it was being laughed at, called by something other than her name, or regarded as less intelligent than her peers. No child wants to be teased in this way. Her hostile reaction to the teasing from her peers is a predictable reaction from someone who may have been conditioned to make it clear that she will command respect. It’s the assault on her dignity, the disrespect, that triggers Dee.

Stacy took pride in her fighting ability. A competitive spirit, she enjoyed a challenge, but she—like so many other girls—was conflating her fear of being perceived as weak or a “punk” with her identity as a “problem child.” That any child would refer to him- or herself as a problem is heartbreaking. Our most basic hope for children should be that they see themselves as sacred and loved, not problematic. She drew her “respect” from outward manifestations of prestige—looking “cute” or fighting—but she was also responding to her fear of not being seen or highly regarded in some way. Stacy framed her behavior as a tendency to get in trouble, but I see her trigger as anything (or anyone) that might interfere with her own visibility politics. Stacy was triggered by a fear of being ignored.

Dress codes in the United States are arbitrary, and in general they are sexist and reinforce the practice of slut shaming. They can also reinforce internalized oppression about the quality of natural hairstyles on people of African descent. While personal taste may lead many of us away from wearing leggings or dreadlocks at school, any school policy that is designed to keep girls from being “too distracting” for boys or presenting in ways that are deemed too ethnic is at minimum sexist and inappropriate.

Dress codes do more than slut-shame Black girls. They marginalize and criminalize them. They cast them as deviant and reinforce social ideas about Black girls’ identity in a way that can be very destructive. Getting turned away from school for not wearing the “proper” clothing—however that is defined—feels unconscionable in a society that, at least on the surface, declares that education is a priority. This practice is primarily about maintaining a social order that renders girls subject to the approving or disapproving gaze of adults. It is grounded in respectability politics that have very little to do with education and more to do with socialization. So when Black girls respond to this treatment with cries of discrimination, it’s important to see them as disruptors of oppression, not as defiant, willfully or otherwise.

Recall that Black girls were not at the center of the debate on public safety when zero-tolerance policies were being passed, so little thought went into how these new policies might uniquely affect them. Black girls’ “attitudes” and “defiant” behaviors were often in response to feeling disrespected—by institutions that constructed conditions that facilitate failure (e.g., increased surveillance, no recess, and punitive discipline policies) and by individuals who triggered them with words and/or actions.

While observing at Small Alternative High in California, I watched teachers skillfully engage girls who might have otherwise been dismissed as “throwing shade” or as having an “attitude problem” under other circumstances. In one instance, a girl let out a few sighs and then settled her head comfortably into her folded arms on the table, resting there for approximately five minutes. Finally a teacher walked past her and asked what was wrong. She lifted her head and shared details about being “tired and hungry.” The exchange between the student and her teacher was neither contentious nor judgmental.

I watched as the teacher pursed her lips, put a hand on her hip, and stared at the girl. In return, the girl raised her eyebrows and shrugged. On the surface, it appeared to be an “attitude” for an “attitude”—but it was more than the stereotypical, negative perceptions associated with the expressions of Black girls and women. This was a slightly comical exchange of information, and from what I observed, it was based on a preestablished relationship in which the student trusted this teacher. A less attuned, empathic teacher could have easily caused the interaction to devolve into conflict and perhaps result in dismissal from the classroom. Yet the exchange, while playful, resulted in the young woman getting a snack, voicing her frustrations about being required to focus on her work, and then returning to her desk. No harm, no foul.

The experiences related in this chapter have mostly focused on attitudes and violent behaviors as expressions of how girls adapt to this disregard.

Diamond was aware of the power dynamic between her and her pimp. For Diamond, who floated between cities in California, there was often no personal choice regarding whether or not to attend school. Under the duress of this older man, she followed orders. Though she was in contact with the juvenile justice system as a result of “prostitution,” there is no such thing as a child prostitute (more on this point later). In this relationship, only he had the ability to determine whether or not she attended school—and most of the time, according to Diamond, she had to stay with him.

Administrators and teachers at Diamond’s school had missed that she was being trafficked and that, consequently, the decision whether or not to attend school was often not her own.

Her skin, her teeth, her mannerisms—they belonged to a child, one who had been through too much, too soon. After a few months of truancy and being “on the run,” law enforcement finally found her. She was arrested and confined to a secure detention facility. “The pimp or ‘boyfriend’ that is keeping you from going to school, does he have an education?” I asked. “Mm-hmm,” Diamond said, nodding. “My boyfriend, he graduated from college.” She looked proud. “So why wouldn’t he support that for you?” I asked. “Well, he tried to . . . like tell me, go back . . . go back home. But I stayed with him because I love him . . . Now look at me,” she said, looking around the juvenile detention classroom where we were seated. Then she collected her thoughts, raised her head, and said, “My boyfriend’s different.” Different, I thought. Really? Her eyes really tried to convince me—and herself—until they started to well up. “Well, okay,” I said, in an admittedly halfhearted tone. “But in general, if you see a dude who’s got his education, but he’s like, ‘No, you can’t have yours,’ how does that make you feel?” “I don’t know,” she said, lowering her eyes to the table. “Do you think that’s fair?” I asked.

What Diamond had to say about what keeps girls like her out of school was insightful. Her own experience with bullying certainly informed her reaction to school—and why she might think that it was necessary to avoid seeing other students who may have spotted her “working.” My conversations with other girls who were victims of sex trafficking revealed that the primary motivating factor for being in the sex industry was the need for money. For many girls who were actively “on the street,” school stopped being a priority, especially if they had an older man reinforcing the idea that her greatest attribute was her sexuality. If a girl attends school, there is another influence in her life. In general, it’s a game of control, and only one person can have it: the pimp. Diamond’s use of the phrase “if he lets you” was evidence of that. She, like other girls I’d spoken with, was relatively clear that in addition to not having full control over her time when she’s on the street, there was a financial incentive—something school doesn’t immediately provide.

Children from middle-class or higher-income families often take for granted the social and material investments (manicures, new shoes, new clothes, extracurricular activities) that reflect the inherent commercialism of a capitalist society. These are influences that reach all children. Choosing a life on the street is ultimately about survival—and that’s what schools are up against.

When girls in the sex trade are removed from school or sent the signal that their presence in school is problematic, they are being handed over to predators. Essentially, schools are throwing them away.

A recent report, The Sexual Abuse to Prison Pipeline, highlighted the way in which girls, particularly girls of color, are criminalized as a result of their sexual and physical abuse. Nationwide, girls who are victims of sex trafficking are routinely in contact with the criminal legal system for truancy and placed in detention and/or child welfare facilities.

This report was an important contribution to the public narrative on pathways to confinement and incarceration and broadened the lens on what has otherwise been a narrow critique of discipline practices.

We flag chronic absenteeism as an indicator of underperformance and alienation from school, but not necessarily as a pathway to (and symptom of) exploitation, delinquency, and incarceration. Under these circumstances, it’s not a stretch for a girl to see only what her pimp or much older “boyfriend” sees.

This manipulated worldview often furthers her exploitation and facilitates a dynamic in which she is neither a dropout nor a pushout but instead a pullout—not of her own volition, but rather by someone who is already “out” himself or herself.

Children cannot legally consent to sex, which means that when they participate in the sale of sex they are being sexually trafficked and exploited, usually by much older men—and sometimes by women, teenagers, and even society at large (the use of women’s and girls’ bodies to sell other products such as apparel, alcohol, or chewing gum). Any and all of these may coerce girls into selling their bodies. Girls who are commercially sexually exploited or victims of sex trafficking are children under the age of eighteen who are coerced into selling their bodies in exchange for money. In the United States, racial disparities in trafficking are pronounced. In terms of what’s reported, 40 percent of sex trafficking victims in the United States are Black.

Los Angeles County Probation Department reported in 2015 that 92 percent of commercially sexually exploited girls in the county are Black.

Despite ongoing legislative and legal interventions, there are inadequate (to put it lightly) educational interventions and partnerships to interrupt the pushout—and pullout—of girls in these areas who are being sexually exploited, or who are at high risk of being trafficked.