When Black Children Are Targeted for Punishment

Sixty years ago today, Minnijean Brown and eight other black students walked into all-white Central High School in Little Rock, Ark., as angry white protesters shouted obscenities, spat on them and threatened violence in full view of television cameras.

The Little Rock Nine were escorted by soldiers from 101st Airborne Division at the order of President Eisenhower, a moment that is rightly celebrated as a triumph in civil rights history.

But a few months after taking her historic steps, Minnijean was suspended for dropping a cafeteria tray after white students obstructed her path. She was later expelled for calling other tormentors “white trash,” after they threw a purse full of combination locks at her. Although, these were not transgressions, and she was not the instigator, Minnijean was the one harshly discipline was a tool used by resistant white schools to make sure that racial integration would not mean equal education for black students. The racial; discipline gap is now a firmly established reality in Arkansas and around the country.

Today, racial disparities in school discipline send the message that blacks are still unequal and unwanted in Arkansas schools. The state ranks 13th in the out-of-school suspension gap between black and white students, were suspended five times as often as whites were, and the little has changed…

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