The first time it happened, I was in elementary school. My teacher sat in a chair, bent me over her knees, and paddled me in front of my classmates. I don’t remember why she felt I deserved it — and I wasn’t the only one getting hit. Corporal punishment happened so often that you could hear the licks from the paddle almost constantly.
While some states have banned corporal punishment (Colorado took this step just last week), students in more than 20 states are still subjected to paddling and other forms of abuse disguised as discipline. In a recent letter to school leaders, US Secretary of Education Miguel Cardona condemned corporal punishment and called on schools to move away from the practice. But a letter isn’t enough. It’s only a small step toward protecting students when we must take leaps.
Nollie Jenkins Family Center is pushing to end the practice in my home state of Mississippi, where a 2016 report published in the Social Policy Report found that Black youth are 51% more likely to be corporally punished than their white classmates in over half the state’s school districts. Only Alabama and Arkansas come close to my state when it comes to educators hitting students. As the report pointed out, Black students and students with disabilities are disproportionately on the receiving end of violent practices designed to dehumanize them and ostracize them from their peers. People argue that Black kids “act out” more, but that’s inaccurate. Previous studies have shown there aren’t any differences in the severity of behaviors carried out by students of different races. Yet, Black children do not receive the same grace granted to their peers for developmentally appropriate behavior.
When we talk about corporal punishment, we have to talk about its connection to this country’s history of racism. The relationship between the practice and the violence enacted by enslavers and later by white people to terrorize and dominate free Black people cannot be overlooked. In a 2019 study published in the journal Social Problems, researchers found a correlation between the prevalence of corporal punishment in communities where historically greater numbers of lynchings had occurred. They uncovered that each additional lynching in a specific county increased the overall rate of corporal punishment in the present time, continuing the violence against Black people that has been passed down from generation to generation.
And this was one of the reasons why ending corporal punishment in my community was so critical: We wanted to end the cycle of abuse against Black children. In Holmes County, Mississippi, where I’m from, the population is about 16,000, and our rural community is 83% African American. We successfully eliminated corporal punishment in our school district after years of spotlighting its harmful effects. That is a win for the county’s Black students.
But we know that even with its elimination, violence against students across the country continues in the form of restraints and seclusion, police in schools, punitive discipline, and student threat assessments. And, as with corporal punishment, these measures are most likely to be imposed upon Black students and students with disabilities. Unless we can abolish these violent practices and other disciplinary disparities across the United States, no win is secure.
The Department of Education claims it is dedicated to “prohibiting discrimination and ensuring equal access to education,” but corporal punishment is inherently discriminatory. Secretary Cardona should use the power of his position and his department to investigate districts that continue to use corporal punishment and encourage the administration to support a federal ban on the practice. Additionally, a federal ban must be coupled with programs that assist states in improving the climate and culture in schools through effective alternatives such as implicit bias training and culturally responsive teaching.
I am the mother of a beautiful two-year-old girl. She pushes every boundary imaginable — hers and mine. She’s a child and that’s what they do. But she is always deserving of my patience, kindness, and love. When I think of the classrooms my daughter will walk into, I cannot rely on hope. As long as corporal punishment is still permitted in the state of Mississippi, hope alone can’t assure me that she won’t be hit by her teachers. And throughout the US, if corporal punishment remains an option, my daughter and her future classmates will never be free from the threat of state-sanctioned violence.
Ending corporal punishment is how we honor students’ agency now and their potential in the future. It is up to us to demand a reality where children are taught by educators who are well-paid, trained in restorative disciplinary practices, and can meet the needs of the students they are entrusted to teach. All students deserve to enter classrooms where they are met with compassion, not cruelty.
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