How Punitive School Discipline Pushes Black Girls Out of Classrooms and Into the Criminal Legal System

Across the United States, schools use various punitive discipline practices that result in students being removed from class, such as suspensions, expulsions, transfers to an alternative education setting, or referrals to law enforcement. These practices often push students—particularly Black girls—out of school altogether, limiting access to learning, support, and opportunity while increasing the chances of contact with law enforcement, the courts, and systems of confinement.

What are the consequences of punitive school discipline practices?

• School disconnection negatively impacts high school graduation rates and post-secondary enrollment: Punitive school discipline weakens students’ connection with school by depriving students of valuable learning time and creating an environment that erodes students’ well-being and sense of safety at school. This is especially true when youth are disciplined for typical adolescent behavior, further eroding trust and contributing to youth feeling alienated from school. This disconnection and alienation from school affect students’ success in school. 

• Minority students—particularly Black girls—report experiencing unfair discipline practices compared to non-minority students. Self-reports of punitive discipline practices disproportionately impact Black and Hispanic students by increasing the number of days they spend out of school and raising their likelihood of arrest and incarceration. Among female students, Black girls are among the most affected, with 20% reporting experiences of unfair discipline—higher than both Hispanic girls (16%) and White girls (14%).  Self-reports of unfair discipline were associated with behavioral and health risks like skipping school, substance use, poor mental health, persistent sadness/hopelessness, suicidal ideation, and attempted suicide.

• Suspension discipline practices can increase likelihood of arrest and contact with criminal legal system: A 2021 study that looked at the outcomes of students who were in middle school during the 2002-2003 school year in Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools found that students at schools with higher suspension rates were 17% more likely to be arrested and 20% more likely to be incarcerated between the age of 16-21.

What Puts Black Girls at Risk of Experiencing School Pushout?

Disconnection from school through punitive school discipline practices increases the likelihood of Black girls coming into contact with the juvenile and criminal justice systems. To change this, we must acknowledge the factors that contribute to risk, and support and strengthen practices that create safe, nurturing educational environments where Black girls and all students can learn and thrive.

Adverse Childhood Experiences and Trauma 

Students who have experienced adverse childhood experiences or trauma—for example, placement in foster care, witnessing community violence, abuse, or housing instability, or parental incarceration—are more likely to demonstrate behaviors that educational institutions categorize as "disruptive" (see more below). This often results in these students facing disciplinary actions rather than receiving the necessary support. 

For example, children in foster care experience school discipline at disproportionately higher rates than children not in foster care. Black girls make up 23% of girls in foster care while only making up 13% of girls in the general population. This means that the negative impacts of being placed in foster care, including school discipline, has an outsized impact on Black girls.

Unmet Mental Health Needs 

When mental health needs go unaddressed, it can lead to serious consequences: Mental health can continue to decline, and the effects of not addressing adolescent mental health problems last well into adulthood. Unaddressed mental health issues may start to show physically and make it hard to manage daily life. Among Black girls, 36.1% report that their mental health was most of the time or always not good. This means that Black girls are particularly impacted when mental health needs go unaddressed. 

For youth, when their mental health needs go unmet, this can ultimately result in poor performance in school, homelessness, and more. For Black girls, research has shown that adults may view Black girls with depression or mental health issues as problems or troublemakers and respond with punishment rather than affirmation and treatment.

Furthermore, the COVID-19 pandemic disrupted in-person learning, which has significantly magnified mental health challenges among youth, behavioral disparities, and learning opportunities among minority students, those with learning disabilities, and individuals from low-income households.

Gender, Race, and Adultification

Black girls are more likely to experience adultification than non-Black girls. This means they are perceived as older, less innocent, and more aggressive than their white peers, leading to outsized punishment for subjective behaviors like “defiance” or “attitude.” 

Black students—especially Black girls and gender-expansive youth—face harsher disciplinary action for the same behaviors as white students. For example, despite a relatively steady enrollment share among female students of about 15%, Black girls accounted for more than three times their enrollment share in transfers and corporal punishment and more than two times their enrollment share in expulsions in the 2017-18 school year.

How do we address school pushout?

Our analysis of national school discipline data reveals that Black girls were the only group of girls to be overrepresented in every type of school disciplinary action, which means that school pushout has an outsized impact on them and increases their chances of coming into contact with law enforcement.

This is why we focus on helping schools create policies and practices that are culturally-affirming, trauma-informed, and gender-responsive, to foster safety, belonging, and opportunity for every student, especially Black girls and gender-expansive youth.

Our work to end school pushout is informed by the lived experiences of Black girls. One of the ways we are pushing back against pushout is our Creating Affirming, Responsive, and Equitable Schools (CARES) Initiative—a training, assistance, and resource hub for schools and educators striving to change and improve their school policies and practices to create supportive environments and foster safety, belonging, and opportunity for every student, especially Black girls and gender-expansive youth.​

As part of this initiative, we have created the CARES Mental Health Assessment Tool—informed by the feedback and lived experiences of Black girls—which guides educators in evaluating their current systems and building school-based mental health programs that respond to the needs of students across all social identities and youth most at risk of pushout.

Our goal is to ensure that Black girls can learn, heal, reconnect with their schools, communities, and have every opportunity to thrive.

We encourage policymakers, educators, and community leaders who work directly with Black girls to explore our resources designed to push back against school pushout. Join our email list to get access to our latest news, reports, and resources to end the criminalization and confinement of Black women and girls.