麻豆传媒入口

I have every reason to quit my job except that when I consider doing so, I have palpable guilt at the thought of the students I might be letting down. They鈥檒l still get a pretty good education, sure, but I have to think that the number of times I speak with students and rationally discuss their typical adolescent behavior that others might not see as typical is worth something. For the last seven years, I have talked myself out of quitting.

In my first years as an administrator in a public high school, I began to see what so many before me righteously called out as systemic racism. Of course, when those two words come up in conversation, there are many who would like to instead discuss affirmative action or who say, 鈥淏ut things are different today than before Brown v. Board of Education.鈥� Or they simply say the name President Barack Obama as if it were proof that racism no longer exists.

The most blatant example of a biased punishment I鈥檝e had to deal with was also the first, and it involved the school dress code. I鈥檝e never been a fan of uniforms, and our high school didn鈥檛 have them, but we did have a dress code, as well as a violation that kept coming up: boys wearing sagging jeans. Now, I鈥檓 fine with not seeing someone鈥檚 underwear during the school day, but this is clearly a violation which disproportionately affects black males. It鈥檚 also one where the punishment can end with the student leaving school and missing out on academic time.

An Eye-Opening Incident

As I was doing my morning hallway supervision, a teacher called me over to where she was berating a black male student about his pants. She ordered me to take him to the discipline office, where I could 鈥渇ix him.鈥� Those were her actual words, and I flinched, but still I had to follow through. I cocked my head at him and offered a sheepish smile that said, 鈥淪orry, Marcus. I gotta take you. You broke a rule.鈥� The smile must have done the trick, because he took a deep breath, straightened the books in his arms, and followed me. As we walked down the hallway, he began pointing out other boys with sagging pants.

All of the other boys were white. They were walking around, free to go about as they wished. 鈥淎re you gonna get him, too, or is it just me?鈥� he asked. 鈥淲hat about him? He鈥檚 sagging. I don鈥檛 see anybody asking him to pick up his pants.鈥� The hallway was the longest one we had in the building, and by the time we reached the discipline office he had pointed out four other boys, all white, wearing their pants in the same way. No teacher had stopped them.

As hard as it was for me to admit, Marcus was right. Here was a policy that was written into our handbook, but the consequences for breaking it were not equitable for all students. I looked around and realized that the other teachers in the hallway were either ignoring the white boys who were sagging or were engaged in conversations with them. Not one of them stopped me the way the first one did to tell me to take those boys to the discipline office. And I was afraid that if I stopped every time he pointed a boy out, he would get away from me or I would be outnumbered by all the boys I was trying to discipline.

What to Do?

I asked Marcus to wait for me by the office. He agreed even though his face showed confusion. I鈥檓 certain that he wondered if he had changed my mind when he saw me make a beeline for a teacher in conversation with one of the other boys we had seen. As I approached, I said, loud enough for the teacher to hear me, 鈥淲hat鈥檚 up with those pants, young man?鈥�

It wasn鈥檛 the response of the student that jarred me. It was the teacher. She turned to him and said, 鈥淟ook at you. Pull those up, would you?鈥� Not only did she not ask that I discipline him, she asked him nicely to pull up his pants. We both waited patiently while he did so, and then she turned to me, 鈥淪ee? Wasn鈥檛 that easy? All we have to do is ask them.鈥�

But that wasn鈥檛 the truth of what I had been experiencing. The truth is that the bias many teachers have against students of color shows up in how they treat white students differently.

By the time I got back to Marcus, I was in tears, and that thoroughly confused him. After all, wasn鈥檛 this just a simple dress code rule? Hadn鈥檛 we just run the gauntlet of rule-breaking students who also needed to be hauled to the office and given the progressive discipline punishment? It wasn鈥檛 that simple.

鈥淢arcus, pull up your pants. Keep them up, please. Can I trust you to do that?鈥�

He was stunned. He couldn鈥檛 believe that I had just asked him nicely to pull up his pants and that I wasn鈥檛 going to punish him. Later that year, when he graduated, he told me I was the first teacher to see him as a person and give him some dignity when correcting his behavior, and that he was grateful he didn鈥檛 get suspended that day, because that鈥檚 where his progressive discipline was headed.

I can鈥檛 quit. There are a million more like Marcus.