Pushout: The Criminalization of Black Girls in Schools

Let's face it—for a large portion of our 18-and-under population, school is not the place they'd choose to be. While most kids do still attend, a number drop out. As Morris (cofounder, National Black Women's Justice Inst.; Black Stats) writes, school can be a hostile environment, especially for black girls, where cultural differences and racial and gender biases can cause other students, teachers, and administrators to misinterpret normal behavior or calls for help as causing trouble. Those students who decide to stop going to class can find themselves immersed in unhealthy practices and situations. African American female dropouts are among the most vulnerable, as they can be led into prostitution, drug addiction, and criminal behavior, and eventually wind up in juvenile facilities where they are exposed to that system's version of education, in which little learning may actually take place. Having had the same experiences as the youth she interviewed for her book, Morris provides sensible solutions to some of the problems she describes, arguing that educators must abandon their stereotypical views of young black women, and instructors at juvenile facilities must want the best for their students.