Antiblack Reliance on Last Resort Sanctions: A Theoretical Perspective on School Discipline

Two of the education policies that were arguably most impactful to racial disparities in discipline are the resegregation of U.S. schools in the decades since the 1954 Brown v. Board of Education decision and the introduction of zero tolerance policies to the school setting in the late twentieth century. Despite the Brown decision bringing an end to legal segregation in U.S. schools, a series of Supreme Court decisions in the following decades undermined any required commitments for U.S. schools to provide an integrated, equitable education for all students (Orfield et al., 2012; Carter et al., 2017). The resegregation of U.S. schools produced a concentration of poor Black students in urban school districts as white families fled to the suburbs to avoid integration, resulting in a decline in funding for city public schools (Calarco, 2020). The modern educational experience of Black students reflects this continued segregation. In the fall of 2021, 37% of Black students attended high-poverty schools and 59% attended schools where the student body was at least 75% students of color. In comparison, only 12% of white students attended low-poverty schools and only 7% of white students were enrolled in schools where the majority of enrolled students were non-white (National Center for Education Statistics, 2023c; National Center for Education Statistics, 2023d). The increase in white student enrollment in suburban schools was associated with increasingly fewer resources in urban schools, with resegregation producing racial disparities in the quality of U.S. education (Frankenberg et al., 2019).

The introduction of zero tolerance policies also contributed to racial disparities in discipline as it shifted the tenor of discipline within U.S. schools to become more punitive and racialized. Through their stated goal of deterring misbehavior through certain and severe punishment, zero tolerance policies targeted serious misdeeds, such as possession of weapons, as well as more minor and nebulously defined misbehavior including schoolyard fights (Heitzeg, 2009). As the reliance upon zero tolerance in response to smaller disciplinary infractions increased, so too did racial disparities in discipline. Black students are punished more frequently and severely than their non-Black peers (Heitzeg, 2009; Smith, 2015; Smith et al., 2023). Differences also emerged among schools, as urban schools with higher enrollment of poor, Black students utilized zero tolerance policies of exclusionary discipline more frequently (Owens, 2022; Tefera et al., 2022).

Consequently, differential suspension rates have been observed in comparisons of Black students and their non-Black peers, particularly white students. Black boys and girls are suspended more frequently and for more subjective reasons compared to their non-Black peers, at both the elementary and secondary school level, and even after accounting for socioeconomic status (de Brey et al., 2019; Gregory et al., 2010; Losen & Skiba, 2010; Welsh, 2022). Though they comprised only 15% of U.S. student enrollment in the 2017–2018 school year, Black students constituted 37% of all suspended students (National Center for Education Statistics, 2022).

The use of zero tolerance policies of exclusionary discipline against Black students also reflects educators’ biased perceptions of Black children as more blameworthy, threatening, and disrespectful. Educators are less likely to utilize mild disciplinary interventions in response to Black students, but are more likely to discipline Black students compared to their white peers (Owens, 2022; Skiba et al., 2014; Triplett et al., 2014). Black students are also disciplined for subjective reasons at higher rates: analysis of office referrals indicated that Black students were disciplined for subjective misbehavior such as disrespect and threat, while white students were disciplined for more unambiguous misbehavior such as smoking or obscenity (Losen & Skiba, 2010). This differential disciplinary experience has both short- and long-term impact on Black students relative to their peers, as suspended students are at increased risk of future suspension and dropping out of school (Morris & Perry, 2016). Additionally, greater disciplinary scrutiny can function to exclude and marginalize Black students in the classroom, as they are cognizant that they are being treated not as students but as suspects (Morris, 2016).

The disparate impact of discipline on Black students has also been observed in schools of varying demographic composition. Higher Black enrollment increased the likelihood of a school relying on out-of-school suspension, in-school suspension, and detention. Schools with higher Black enrollment were also significantly less likely to use milder forms of discipline or restorative disciplinary methods (Welch & Payne, 2010, 2012). The disparate impact of discipline on Black students has also been observed in schools of varying demographic composition. Schools with higher Black student enrollment are significantly less likely to utilize milder forms of discipline or restorative disciplinary methods, and hand out significantly longer suspensions. These findings have led to conclusions that schools with higher Black enrollment may develop more punitive cultures of discipline (Smith et al., 2023; Welch & Payne, 2010, 2012).

While this research suggests there is greater reliance on discipline in schools with higher Black student enrollment, findings are less consistent regarding whether, after controlling for other factors, Black students are more likely to be suspended in majority Black schools or schools with different demographic composition. Some research suggests that Black students in racially diverse schools are suspended at higher rates compared to their non-Black peers or other Black students enrolled in segregated schools (Diamond & Lewis, 2019; Freeman & Steidl, 2016). Conversely, other studies suggest that Black students in racially diverse schools are less likely to experience punitive discipline than Black students in segregated schools, particularly those attending majority Black schools (Edwards, 2016). The variety in sample size, methodology, and geographic location of these studies makes it difficult to draw clear conclusions regarding racial disparities in discipline within diverse schools in comparison to segregated schools. Taken together, however, these results suggest that Black students across schools of varying demographic composition are singled out for punishment (Smith et al., 2023).

A number of explanations have been advanced to explain the disproportionate use of discipline against Black students and within Black schools; these explanations vary in their identification of causes at the organizational or individual level.

In his 1981 article On Last Resorts, Robert Emerson developed the concept of the last resort sanction, a severe intervention used by organizations. When addressing incidents involving “trouble,” social organizations have at their disposal a variety of interventions of varying severity that they may be required to utilize in order to exercise social control. In contrast to first resorts, which are “typically presented as what should or ought to be done,” last resorts are necessary but undesirable responses to serious trouble (Emerson, 1981, p. 4). The failure of normal resorts is typically the impetus for organizational use of last resorts, as the amenability of most cases to conventional sanction and severity of the final sanction is such that last resorts are meant to be used infrequently. Actors within organizations must gain organizational approval to utilize last resorts; this is accomplished by establishing the ineffectiveness or inappropriateness of normal resorts in response to a specific case. To demonstrate inappropriateness, actors typically portray perpetrators as culpable to indicate their responsibility for their behavior, or mentally disturbed to suggest that social control is necessary for incapacitation. To demonstrate ineffectiveness of normal interventions, actors must establish that the interventions failed due to the severity of trouble in a case limiting the effectiveness of a normal resort as social control (Emerson, 1981).

Last resorts have been applied to analyze organizational use of sanctions in a variety of contexts, including the juvenile court, adult court, and social work (Kupchik, 2006; Myers, 2003; Saario et al., 2021; Singer, 1996). In the juvenile court system, for instance, incarceration in juvenile or adult facilities is considered a last resort sanction. Court actors must justify their sentencing of juvenile offenders to either carceral setting, typically by demonstrating that normal, less severe punishments have been attempted and failed (Kupchik, 2006; Singer, 1996). Most recently, last resort sanctions has been applied as a framework to understand decisions made by European welfare services to enact the last resort sanction of ending home visits for hard-to-reach clients. Welfare service workers were observed to justify the use of last resort sanctions (ending home visits) by framing clients as problems and lost causes in conversation with one another, reinforcing one another’s interpretations of client behavior and using these interpretations to justify ending home visits (Saario et al., 2021). To this researcher’s knowledge there has yet to be an application of Emerson’s last resorts to public education. This article is thus the first to analyze exclusionary school discipline through the lens of last resort sanctions.

Trouble factors into organizational decision-making surrounding the use of last resorts, as last resort sanctions are typically utilized only when trouble is severe enough that normal resorts are inappropriate or unsuccessful (Emerson, 1981). Determinations of trouble can then be influenced by antiblackness through antiblack stereotypes that distort the perceived severity of trouble. Antiblack stereotypes of Black criminality and violence rooted in the false truths of race have survived in the afterlife of slavery and continue to inform societal perceptions of Black people, including Black children (Dumas, 2016; Green, 1998; Taylor et al., 2019; Yancy, 2016). In the school setting, Black students are conceptualized as a persistent problem, with their existence signaling the looming threat of violence, as the stereotype of the “Black male criminal” obscure the humanity of the Black boy and stereotypes of Black female promiscuity, defiance, and aggression overshadow the identities of Black girls, particularly dark-skinned Black girls (Carter et al., 2017; Hannon et al., 2013; Powell & Syrek, 2017; Yancy, 2016).

Actors within school organizations are influenced by antiblackness in their interpretations of misbehavior and assessments of trouble. School actors, particularly white educators, have absorbed antiblack stereotypes that inform their interpretations of Black students’ behavior and assessments of trouble. As Black children are viewed through the lens of these stereotypes as more aggressive and defiant, their misbehavior is interpreted as more dangerous, thus requiring severe organizational intervention (Dumas, 2016; Emerson, 1981; Ferguson, 2001). That Black students are disciplined at higher rates for subjective misbehavior and are more likely to receive punitive disciplinary responses rather than milder interventions is indicative of antiblackness operating in assessments of trouble. Black students are present within school settings where the presumption of their functioning as a criminal threat is embedded within the environment, informing assessments not only of their behavior, but their potential behavior as well, as “Black existence constitutes the threat” (Yancy, 2016, p. 17). This pervasiveness of antiblack stereotypes thus enables school actors to justify the disparate reliance on last resort sanctions, as the social construction of Blackness as dangerous leads to organizational perception of Black students as an inherent threat to others (Emerson, 1981; Powell & Syrek, 2017).

The adultification of Black children due to antiblackness and the subsequent denial of their childhood shape assessments of culpability in the disciplinary decision-making process; the influence of adultification on assessments then contributes to the greater reliance upon last resort sanctions of discipline against Black students. Antiblackness is such that Black children are viewed not as children first, but as Black first, with the same denial of humanity and stereotypes of inferiority, violence, criminality, and negativity that are leveled at Black adults being applied to Black children as well. Consequently Black children are subject to adultification, wherein they are viewed as older than they are and more akin to small adults than children (Epstein et al., 2017; Ferguson, 2001; Powell & Syrek, 2017).

Adultification denies Black children presumptions of childhood innocence, as they are instead assigned developmentally inaccurate levels of intentionality. In the context of school discipline, this inaccurate assessment of intentionality shapes organizational determinations of culpability. The adultification and denial of childhood to Black children can lead adults in the school setting to attribute blame in ways that are developmentally inappropriate, as Black students are frequently accused of possessing a malice or intentionality in their misbehavior that belies their age (Ferguson, 2001; Powell & Syrek, 2017). These interpretations of behavior through the lens of adultification then increase the perceived responsibility of Black children for their actions, as well as their perceived culpability. As Black children are viewed as more culpable, educators can more easily provide organizational justification for the use of last resort sanctions in response, thereby justifying the suspension of Black students for more minor misbehavior (Emerson, 1981; Epstein et al., 2017; Ferguson, 2001; Powell & Syrek, 2017).

The implicit biases of educators working in schools is another means through which antiblackness can shape last resort sanctioning. As individuals working and living in an antiblack world, educators absorb notions of Black inferiority and dangerousness that can negatively shape their perception of Black students and produce implicit bias. The implicit biases possessed by educators can inform their perception of Black students as perpetually guilty and therefore inherently culpable, contributing to greater surveillance of Black students and producing more opportunities and justification for the use of last resorts of discipline (Emerson, 1981; Jenkins, 2021; Jung & Vargas, 2021).

While whiteness is granted the presumption of innocence in an antiblack world, Black people are deemed structurally and perpetually guilty as Blackness is itself considered an indication of guilt (Gordon, 1995; Wun, 2016; Yancy, 2016). Gordon (1995) explained the relationship between innocence and Blackness as such: “I am black. I have therefore committed a crime. I am black. I know what is the problem with my black body. It exists. I therefore ‘am’ a crime” (p. 101). In an antiblack world, Black people, including Black students, are deemed structurally and perpetually guilty (Gordon, 1995; Wun, 2016). As Black children move through organizations that are rooted in antiblackness, they are perceived and punished by educators through the lens of perpetual guilt due to implicit biases informed by antiblackness. In the school setting, Black students are viewed as inherently guilty and automatically culpable even if they have not yet misbehaved. The perceived perpetual guilt of Black students due to educators who view them through the lens of implicit bias contributes to the greater surveillance of Black students by school actors and within organizations. As they are seen as structurally guilty, Black children live in the world of the “when,” as school actors wait for them to prove their guilt through criminal behavior. Black students are subject to surveillance by school actors seeking to identify misbehavior and exercise punishment; school actors are thus given increased opportunities to potentially observe misbehavior of Black students that they would otherwise miss and ignore misbehavior of non-Black students who are not subject to the same scrutiny (Wun, 2021). This increased surveillance of Black students also provides school actors with more opportunities to interpret behavior through antiblack stereotypes and conclude that Black students engaged in serious trouble (Wun, 2021). As notions of perpetual guilt and antiblack stereotypes enhance the perceived culpability of Black students, organizational actors are more easily able to justify the use of last resort sanctions against Black students (Emerson, 1981; Wun, 2021). Perpetual guilt and antiblack stereotypes thus normalize the disparate use of last resort sanctions against Black students and justify racially disparate discipline (Emerson, 1981; Gordon, 1995; Wun, 2021).

In the school setting, antiblackness manifests in the enforcement of dominant class norms to further the stated educational goal of producing productive future citizens (Noguera, 2003). The dominant group norms introduced and enforced within schools are those of the white middle and upper class. Consequently “Black students are forcibly thrusted to the margins'' as their cultural norms and practices are ostracized and rejected (Jenkins, 2021, p. 113). This rejection of Black cultural norms and elevation of white cultural norms within the school setting functions as a continued reassertion of racial hierarchy. By making white norms and values the standard, schools as organizations reinforce notions of white superiority and Black inferiority (Elmesky & Marcucci, 2023; Gordon, 1995; Noguera, 2003). As school norms are structured around the inclusion of whiteness and exclusion of Blackness, organizational definitions of behavior and misbehavior as they relate to discipline are shaped by antiblackness. The historical definition of whiteness around the exclusion of Blackness is such that antiblackness is reinforced within schools as antiblackness is used to define what is not normative (Ferguson, 2001; Wun, 2021). Black students who adhere to Black cultural norms or fail to align with the norms of the white middle-class are viewed as defiant and non-normative. Last resort sanctions become a method of punishment wielded to suppress their Black cultural expression (Elmesky & Marcucci, 2023). Lack of adherence to the norms of the white middle-class may result in Black students being viewed as more troublesome, with their behavior therefore being identified as more deserving of last resort sanctioning (Elmesky & Marcucci, 2023; Emerson, 1981).