The Persistence of Bias: Why Expanding Discipline Options Has Failed to Close the Racial Gap
For years, school districts across the United States have embarked on a mission to dismantle the "school-to-prison pipeline." Alarmed by data showing that students of color are suspended at significantly higher rates than their white peers, administrators have pivoted away from traditional exclusionary tactics. The strategy is built on a progressive premise: if schools offer a wider menu of consequences—ranging from restorative justice circles and behavioral interventions to detention and loss of privileges—the reliance on punitive, exclusionary suspension will naturally decline, fostering a more equitable environment for all.
However, a groundbreaking study released in July 2026 suggests this "menu approach" to discipline may be fundamentally flawed. According to research conducted by Youngsun Lee and Jing Liu of the University of Maryland, College Park, and Emily K. Penner of the University of California, Irvine, diversifying disciplinary options has failed to close the racial and ethnic discipline gap. In the large southern school district analyzed, the reforms did not eliminate disparate outcomes; they simply shifted the terrain upon which bias operates.
The Study: Peering Inside the "Black Box" of Administrative Discretion
The study, titled Discipline Beyond Suspensions: Racial/Ethnic Disparities Across the Spectrum of Disciplinary Actions, provides a granular look at how schools manage student behavior. The researchers analyzed two years of administrative data—from 2022 to 2024—covering 70,000 students across 125 schools.
Unlike previous studies that looked at high-level aggregate trends, this analysis tracked 47 distinct disciplinary actions, which the researchers grouped into seven categories: out-of-school suspension, in-school suspension, school resource officer (SRO) involvement, detention, loss of privilege, behavioral guidance interventions, and "other."
By comparing students from the same school who were referred for identical violations, and even drilling down to students involved in the exact same incident, the research team isolated race and ethnicity as the primary variables shaping disciplinary outcomes. The result was a sobering look at how the shift toward "alternative" discipline has failed to account for the human element of administrative discretion.
A Statistical Snapshot of Disparity
The raw data from the district paints a stark picture of inequity. Black students, who comprised 42 percent of the district’s total enrollment, accounted for a staggering 62 percent of all disciplinary referrals and 74 percent of all out-of-school suspensions. In contrast, white students represented 27 percent of the student body but were consistently underrepresented in every category of punitive discipline.
The most glaring disparities emerged during high-stakes incidents. Fighting, the second most frequent infraction in the district and the primary driver of suspensions, became the focal point of the researchers’ analysis. Even when controlling for the specific incident, the racial gap remained persistent and profound:
- Suspension Probability: For fighting, Black students were four percentage points more likely than white students to receive an out-of-school suspension.
- The "Same Fight" Analysis: Perhaps most damning is the data regarding students involved in the same physical altercation. Researchers found that Black students were 2.5 percentage points more likely than their white counterparts to be suspended out-of-school for the same fight.
- SRO Involvement: Black students were nearly three times as likely to have a School Resource Officer involved in the disciplinary process following a fight.
- The Privilege Gap: While Black students faced exclusionary consequences, white students involved in the exact same incidents were statistically more likely to receive "loss of privileges"—a milder consequence that keeps the student within the learning environment.
The Nuance of Rule Enforcement: A Tale of Two Infractions
One of the study’s most significant findings is that racial disparities are not uniform across all rule violations. When researchers isolated infractions such as classroom disruption or minor noncompliance, the racial gap narrowed significantly. In these lower-stakes situations, the disciplinary treatment of Black and white students was remarkably similar.
This suggests that the "bias" identified by Lee, Liu, and Penner is not a constant, pervasive force in every classroom interaction. Instead, it is a variable triggered by the nature of the incident. When an administrator is faced with a high-stakes, high-emotion situation like a physical fight, the "wide discretion" afforded to them becomes a vehicle for implicit—or explicit—bias.
"The disparities emerge less in day-to-day rule enforcement and more in the discretionary calls administrators make during higher-stakes incidents," the authors note. This finding challenges the current reform consensus, which assumes that providing more options will naturally lead to more equitable choices. If the administrator’s subjective judgment is the bottleneck, adding more options simply provides more opportunities for that judgment to manifest as disparate treatment.
Implications for Reform: Addressing the Blind Spot
The findings from the University of Maryland and UC Irvine team represent a potential paradigm shift in educational policy. For the last decade, the mantra of school discipline reform has been to reduce the volume of suspensions. Policymakers and researchers have spent years tracking whether new interventions successfully keep students in seats.
However, the authors argue that this focus has created a critical "blind spot." By obsessing over the overall reduction of suspension rates, the system has ignored how the remaining disciplinary actions are distributed. If a district reduces its total suspensions but continues to suspend Black students at a significantly higher rate than white students for the same infraction, it has not achieved equity; it has merely practiced a form of "equity theater."
Recommendations for School Districts
The authors of the study do not argue for a return to rigid, zero-tolerance policies. Instead, they suggest that schools must move beyond the "menu approach." Their recommendations include:
- Standardized Rubrics: Districts should develop clear, mandatory guidelines that dictate the range of consequences for specific infractions. By narrowing the scope of administrative discretion, schools can ensure that the punishment is tied to the act, not the student’s background.
- Regular Equity Audits: Districts should move beyond tracking total suspension numbers and begin analyzing disciplinary data through the lens of "same-incident" comparisons to identify where bias is creeping into the decision-making process.
- Cultural Competency and Implicit Bias Training: While not a panacea, training for administrators specifically focused on high-stakes decision-making could help decision-makers identify the moments where their judgment may be clouded by stereotypes.
- Redefining "Restorative": The study suggests that if restorative justice and behavioral interventions are applied inconsistently, they lose their efficacy. Schools must ensure that these alternatives are offered as an equitable standard for all students, rather than a "softer" option reserved for specific demographics.
The Path Forward
The research by Lee, Liu, and Penner provides a necessary mirror for the American education system. As school districts continue to navigate the difficult balance between maintaining order and ensuring equity, the evidence suggests that the "menu" of options is not the solution.
The struggle to close the racial discipline gap is not merely a matter of logistics or the availability of resources; it is a matter of administrative culture. Without a fundamental re-examination of how disciplinary power is exercised during the most heated moments of the school day, the systemic inequities that have plagued the system for decades are unlikely to vanish.
As the authors conclude, expanding the selection of disciplinary tools is insufficient if the hand that selects them remains guided by the same biases that necessitated the reforms in the first place. For true progress to occur, schools must confront the difficult reality that even with the best intentions and the most comprehensive policies, the human element of judgment remains the final, and often most unequal, arbiter of justice in the classroom.
