Towards a Problem-Solving Approach to Addressing Racial Disparities in School Discipline Under Anti-Discrimination Law

Racial disparities in exclusionary school discipline pose a serious threat to equal educational opportunity. Federal anti-discrimination law, which largely protects against direct forms of racial bias, is too narrowly focused to require schools, districts, and states to consider the broad range of factors that contribute to racial disparities in school discipline. Anti-discrimination law could more effectively address complex issues like racial disparities in exclusionary school discipline if it created an affirmative duty to engage in a problem-solving approach focused on goals related to achieving equity. To support the argument, this article draws on the example and experience of the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA), which requires use of a problem-solving approach to identify and address “significant disproportionality” in discipline outcomes of students with disabilities based on their race. The basic framework of the IDEA serves as an example for implementation of a problem-solving approach for anti-discrimination law. It also highlights practical, legal, and methodological issues inherent in the assessment of racial disparities and evaluation of interventions to address them. Building on research on measures of and approaches for resolving racial disparities in discipline, the manuscript proposes ways to address these issues. It also uses national school discipline data to illustrate show how the proposed approaches could make anti-discrimination law more effective at addressing these issues