Locking Out Black Girls

In Pushout: The Criminalization of Black Girls in Schools, Monique W. Morris argues that black girls face aggression and oppression in the American educational system. While most of today’s conversations about  the school-to-prison pipeline and racism focus on the plight of black men and boys, writes Morris, black girls are “locked out” of society in different ways than boys are.

Research exploring the impact of “zero-tolerance” policies, for example, has focused on black boys but according to the African American Policy Forum, “while black boys are the group most likely to be suspended from school, black girls have a higher relative risk—six times higher—of suspension in comparison to their white female counterparts,” reports Clio Chang.

Suspension and expulsion are linked to school dropout and increased contact with the justice system, Morris says, and these punitive policies adversely affect these girls for the rest of their lives, socially and economically.

Read more at New Republic