This past October, an African-American student at Spring Valley High School in Columbia, South Carolina, suffered injuries to her arm, neck and back after a white school resource officer flipped the girl out of her chair, dragged her across the classroom floor, and handcuffed her. The encounter apparently started when the sophomore refused to stop using her cellphone and ignored requests by school staff to leave the classroom. The incident was captured on a classmate’s cellphone and went viral (http://goo.gl/enYflk). In addition to her injuries, both the student and the classmate who filmed the incident were charged under South Carolina’s “disturbing schools” law—a misdemeanor criminal charge punishable by up to 90 days in jail and a $1,000 fine. That statute makes it unlawful “to interfere with or to disturb in any way … the students or teachers of any school” or “to act in an obnoxious manner” on school premises. That it is acceptable to arrest teenagers for acting in an “obnoxious” manner is indicative of the fairly unfettered discretion that school officials have to punish student misconduct.
In light of Columbine, Sandy Hook and other lesser-known instances of school violence, officials need to be vigilant about student misbehavior. But excessive responses by school officials can also harm children. Indeed, the arrest of the South Carolina student in the above scenario exemplifies some of the extreme discipline taken by school officials today. According to a study by the Vera Institute of Justice, by 1997, 79 percent of officials had adopted so-called “zero-tolerance policies” in schools. Today, many school districts have made their disciplinary policies more punitive by expanding the list of punishable offenses, hiring school police officers to monitor schools, limiting discretion in discipline, and permitting staff responses that include physical restraint, expulsion and referral to law enforcement.
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