Columbia Law School

Center for Intersectionality and Social Policy

African American Policy Forum

BLACK GIRLS MATTER: PUSHED OUT, OVERPOLICED, AND UNDERPROTECTED

By Kimberle Williams Crenshaw with Priscilla Ocen and Jyoti Nanda

Excerpts from document

Discipline Rates

In Boston, Black girls comprised 61 percent of all girls disciplined, compared to white girls, who represented only five percent of such girls. Even though there were about three times as many Black girls as white girls enrolled, Black girls were eleven times more subjected to discipline than their white counterparts (340 vs. 30 cases, respectively). 

In New York City, Black girls represented 56 percent of all girls disciplined, compared to white girls, who represented only five percent of such girls. The enrollment of Black girls was about twice the rate of white girls but they were subjected to school discipline at ten times the rate of the white female counterparts(9,076 vs. 884 cases, respectively).

In New York City during the 2011-2012 year, ninety percent of all girls subjected to expulsion were Black. No white girls were expelled, and thus, no ratio can be calculated;but the magnitude  of the disparity can be captured by simply imagining that one white had been expelled. Were that the case, the ratio would be 53:1.

In Boston,  the percentages are also alarming. Of the total number of girls subjected to expulsion, 63 percent were Black; and no white girls were subject to expulsion. Again, assuming that one white girl had been expelled, Black girls would have been expelled at a rate of ten to one.

#Loray Muhammad, author
#Black Integration a Failed Social Experiment