Pushout: The Criminalization of Black Girls in Schools

by Monique W. Morris

“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.