School Discipline and the Expansion of Disparate Impact - Podcast

On January 8, 2014, the Department of Justice Civil Rights Division and the Department of Education Office for Civil Rights jointly released a memo urging public schools to revisit discipline policies that they assert have a disproportionate effect on minority students. “Schools ... violate Federal law when they evenhandedly implement facially neutral policies and practices that, although not adopted with the intent to discriminate, nonetheless have an unjustified effect of discriminating against students on the basis of race," read the memo. "Examples of policies that can raise disparate impact concerns include policies that impose mandatory suspension, expulsion, or citation (e.g., ticketing or other fines or summonses) upon any student who commits a specified offense — such as being tardy to class, being in possession of a cellular phone, being found insubordinate, acting out, or not wearing the proper school uniform.” Our experts discussed the expansion of disparate impact analysis into school discipline. Materials referenced during this podcast are available on this web page under "Related Links."

Featuring:

• Hans Bader, Senior Attorney and Counsel for Special Projects, Competitive Enterprise Institute
• Roger Clegg, President and General Counsel, Center for Equal Opportunity
• Moderator: Dean Reuter, Vice President and Director of Practice Groups, The Federalist Society