Willful Defiance: The Movement to Dismantle the School-to-Prison Pipeline

339 Pages·2022·2.008 MB·English

by  Mark R. Warren

Willful Defiance

Willful Defiance
The Movement to Dismantle the
School- to- Prison Pipeline
MARK R. WARREN
1
3
Oxford University Press is a department of the University of Oxford. It furthers
the University’s objective of excellence in research, scholarship, and education
by publishing worldwide. Oxford is a registered trade mark of Oxford University
Press in the UK and certain other countries.
Published in the United States of America by Oxford University Press
198 Madison Avenue, New York, NY 10016, United States of America.
© Mark R. Warren 2022
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in
a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the
prior permission in writing of Oxford University Press, or as expressly permitted
by law, by license, or under terms agreed with the appropriate reproduction
rights organization. Inquiries concerning reproduction outside the scope of the
above should be sent to the Rights Department, Oxford University Press, at the
address above.
You must not circulate this work in any other form
and you must impose this same condition on any acquirer.
CIP data is on file at the Library of Congress
ISBN 978– 0– 19– 761151– 7 (pbk.)
ISBN 978– 0– 19– 761150– 0 (hbk.)
DOI: 10.1093/ oso/ 9780197611500.001.0001
1 3 5 7 9 8 6 4 2
Paperback printed by LSC Communications, United States of America
Hardback printed by Bridgeport National Bindery, Inc., United States of America
Cover graphic: The graphic of the backpack with a raised fist was designed by
19 the Agency and commissioned and adopted by the Dignity in Schools
Campaign for its Week of Action against School Pushout.
Cover photograph: The background photograph was taken by the Labor Community
Strategy Center at it march and rally at the Los Angeles Board of Education in 2016 demanding
an end to the federal program that provided military-grade weapons to LA’s school police
With deep respect to all the young people and parents who willfully defy a
system designed to discipline and punish them and who organize for education
and liberation
Willful Defiance
Disrupting school activities or otherwise willfully defying the authority of
supervisors, teachers, administrators, school officials, or other school per-
sonnel engaged in the performance of their duties.
— California Education Code, Section 48900
Every year, public schools suspend hundreds of thousands of students,
mostly Black and Brown students and those with disabilities, for behavior
that is sometimes called “willful defiance.” Starting in the 1990s, state after
state passed laws granting local school districts the authority to punish
students for this kind of reason. Mississippi schools suspend students for
“disruptive behavior” and Louisiana for “willful disobedience.” In South
Carolina, it is called “disturbing school” and for many years was cause not just
for suspension but criminal penalty; so was “acting in an obnoxious manner.”
In a widely publicized case in the state, Niya Kenny was charged with crim-
inal “disrupting school” when she used her cell phone to capture a police of-
ficer violently dragging another Black girl from her desk and throwing her
to the floor. Meanwhile, South Dakota bans “boisterous” behavior, while
Arkansas prohibits “annoying conduct.” Maine makes interrupting a teacher
by speaking loudly a civil offense, punishable by up to a $500 fine.1
Suspensions for willful defiance or disruption make up a sizable propor-
tion of all suspensions, and in many school districts students are suspended
for this reason more than any other. For example, in 2012, schools suspended
over a quarter of a million students in California for disruption or defiance,
representing well over half of all suspensions. As a broad and vague category,
willful defiance and disruption relies on a subjective assessment by a teacher
or school official and is particularly subject to racial bias. Schools suspend
students of color for “willful defiance” for a wide range of infractions, in-
cluding talking back to teachers, refusing to take off a hoodie, or using a cell
phone in class.2
Using “willful defiance” as the title of this book flips the script. It signifies de-
fiance of school authority that serves to discipline and punish students and to
push them out of school and into the juvenile and criminal justice systems—t he
x Willful Defiance
school-t o-p rison pipeline. When students and parents stand up to this kind of
authority, they are consciously and intentionally challenging this system. As
we will see in this book, when students rebel, they are often punished, while
parents who stand up for their children are silenced, excluded, and sometimes
even arrested. Community organizing groups bring parents and students to-
gether to move from individual acts of defiance to a collective movement to
build the power to dismantle the school-t o-p rison pipeline.
Glorya Wornum, a Black girl (now woman) in Boston tells this story
that I believe perfectly captures the spirit of the title and of the movement.
Wornum was disciplined and suspended for challenging the type of history
taught in her school’s curriculum.
I asked a lot of questions in school. For example, our history textbooks
came from Texas. “Is this really history?” I would ask. Teachers would tell
me, “You’re being disruptive; please go take a walk.” I would get into fights
and arguments and I was suspended about twelve times. Once you’re sus-
pended for a fight, then you’re suspended for asking questions.
I realized I was fighting the wrong way when I met a nonprofit organi-
zation that supports youth organizing. They allowed me to be angry and
to feel what I was feeling. I started positively struggling instead of nega-
tively struggling. A lot of things need to be changed, and you’re allowed to
change it.
Before, everyone told me, “No, don’t do that!” or “Be quiet!” or “Put your
hand down!” Then I went into an environment where people said, “Raise
your hand. Say something. Reach out to somebody. Be a part of something.
Do something!”3
As a result of the organizing documented in this book, the movement to dis-
mantle the school- to- prison pipeline has begun to roll back exclusionary dis-
cipline policies across the country. A coalition of organizing groups and their
allies, for example, got the Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD)
to ban suspensions for willful defiance in 2013. The next year, the state of
California banned suspensions for willful defiance for grades K–3 and ex-
tended it to grade eight in 2019. As a result of these and other changes, the
number of out- of- school suspensions dropped 46% in California from the
2011– 2012 to the 2016–2 017 school year while Los Angeles suspensions fell
dramatically. In the 2007–2 008 school year, LAUSD students lost 74,765 days
Willful Defiance xi
due to out- of- school suspensions. By the 2016– 2017 school year, that number
had dropped to fewer than 5,600 days.4
Despite these gains in ending zero- tolerance approaches to discipline and
more recent success in reducing police presence in schools, the school-t o-
prison pipeline remains deeply entrenched in our public education system.
This book reveals the experiences of students and parents of color enmeshed
in the school-t o- prison pipeline and tells the story of the movement they
have built to “willfully defy” and dismantle it.5
Introduction
Confronting the School-t o- Prison Pipeline:
Journeys to Racial Justice Organizing
When Zakiya Sankara-J abar’s three- year- old African American son was
suspended from his pre– K program in Dayton, Ohio, she was shocked at
first. The preschool kept calling to say Amir was in trouble for biting other
students or having difficulty transitioning from one activity to another. In
Sankara- Jabar’s view, “They made normal three-y ear- old behavior sound
very pathologized and abnormal.” The school wanted to have her son evalu-
ated. On the advice of her pediatrician, Sankara- Jabar refused. She worried
that Amir would be unfairly labeled and that the label would stick with him
throughout his schooling years. Eventually, under pressure from the school
administration, she decided to withdraw her son from the school, but he was
subsequently suspended and expelled from several other preschools.
Sankara- Jabar had to drop out of college to care for her son. Before she did,
however, she used the college’s library services to search for articles on the
experiences of Black boys in public education. She quickly learned that her
son’s experiences were not unusual.
I suddenly realized that I wasn’t a bad parent, and my son wasn’t abnormal.
This was something larger, more societal that was happening to African
American parents. That’s when I began organizing.
Sankara- Jabar started talking to other Black parents and many shared similar
stories.
I found out from the other parents who had Black boys with the same beha-
vior or personality as my son— kids who are energetic, who know what they
want, who have strong personality traits— that they had the same experi-
ence. I was coming to the realization that schools are not working for Black
children, regardless of whether they are urban, rural, or suburban.
Willful Defiance. Mark R. Warren, Oxford University Press. © Mark R. Warren 2022.
DOI: 10.1093/ oso/ 9780197611500.003.0001
2 Willful Defiance
Sankara- Jabar reached out to Vernellia Randall, an African American law
professor at the University of Dayton. Together they founded Racial Justice
NOW! (RJN) in Randall’s living room in the fall of 2011 with a mission to
address racially targeted punitive discipline and address the larger crisis in
education for Black children. Randall gathered data on school discipline in
public schools while Sankara-J abar organized parents. The fledgling group
joined the Dignity in Schools Campaign (DSC), the national coalition of
organizing and advocacy groups working to dismantle the school- to- prison
pipeline. DSC provided the new group with crucial support and resources—
like a model alternative code of student conduct to replace zero-t olerance
policies and training opportunities for parents to learn how to advocate for
policy change. In a few short years, with assistance from DSC and the pow-
erful voice and leadership of Black parents on the ground, RJN won a mor-
atorium on pre–K suspensions in Dayton schools—t he first district in the
state to do so— and changed the district’s code of student conduct to end
zero- tolerance policies. The group also won restorative justice programs
in eight schools, which featured an alternative approach that helps schools
get at the root causes of behavioral issues rather than punish and suspend
students. Continuing its work to support the education of Black boys, RJN
got the district to establish an Office for Males of Color, modeled on the
successful program pioneered in Oakland, California, only the third in the
country at the time. RJN also issued school discipline report cards for 1,100
school districts across Ohio and became a key force behind passage of a state
law in 2018 banning suspensions and expulsions for students who commit
minor infractions in pre–K through third grade.1
Speaking proudly, Sankara- Jabar notes, “A little volunteer group, Racial
Justice NOW!, did all that.” Nevertheless, in her view, this is just the begin-
ning of what needs to be done to tackle a system where “the abnormal has
been normalized.” Too many schools today will routinely suspend Black chil-
dren, especially boys, label them failures, and send them down the road that
eventually leads to prison and a life struggling with poverty.
The Black community is in a state of crisis when it comes to education.
I feel angry sometimes that there is not more outrage. We keep seeing these
reports and this data, but nobody is up in arms. We need to make some
drastic changes right now. I want to jolt the consciousness of the parents in
our community to not accept the abnormal as normal.