NCYL Files Civil Rights Complaint: African-American Students Disproportionately “Ticketed” by Texas School District
In February, Michael Harris and Hannah Benton, attorneys with the National Center for Youth Law, along with the NAACP Legal Defense Fund (LDF), filed a civil rights complaint alleging that a Texas school district’s use of law enforcement officers to “ticket” students for disciplinary issues unlawfully impacted African-American students. Among other things, the citations land students in court, which perpetuates the "school-to-prison pipeline." NCYL and LDF filed the complaint on behalf of Texas Appleseed and the Brazos County branch of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP).
According to the complaint, which was filed with the U.S. Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights, the Bryan Independent School District’s (Bryan ISD) use of “school resource officers” (SROs) from the local police department to cite students for non-dangerous behavior, such as profane language or disrupting class, is illegal. Students who are cited have to appear in court, which leads to missed class time, and may have to pay fines, attend behavior management classes, and report the citations on college and employment applications. These measures do far more harm to students than good. According to Ann Boney, President of Brazos County NAACP, “Research shows that a discipline policy that removes students from school and introduces them to the justice system increases the risk of dropping out.”
Bryan ISD’s ticketing rate is the second highest among 42 Texas school districts which provided their data to Texas Appleseed. In the past few years, more than half of all citations went to African-American students even though they comprised just 21% of the school population. Moreover, for behaviors like swearing and disrupting class, Bryan ISD ticketed African-American students four times more often than their peers. According to Senior Attorney Harris, “The school district must be held accountable for the disproportionate impact on African-American students, who are also much more likely to be suspended and expelled from Bryan schools.”
The complaint asks OCR to require Bryan ISD to create clear guidelines as to what school-based behavior is appropriate for SROs to handle, use SROs for only those behaviors that pose a safety threat, report quarterly on citation data, develop positive interventions for students with multiple citations, and provide more training to SROs and school officials, among other things.
