In what will hopefully be the death knell of an ill-conceived and poorly executed policy, the Office for Civil Rights of the U.S. Department of Education and the U.S. Department of Justice Civil Rights Division recently have warned local and state departments of education that the application of zero tolerance in student discipline policies is a potential basis for a finding of discrimination on the basis of race, color or national origin.
In the face of growing concern about issues of student safety and discipline, zero tolerance became a convenient short hand to describe a set of policies that impose a one-size-fits-all disciplinary policy that denies school administrators any discretion in dealing with certain, serious disciplinary infractions such as the sale of drugs or possession of a weapon on school grounds. These policies, which typically result in mandatory suspension or expulsion of the offending student, deny administrators the ability to consider the unique circumstances of each case and each student and to craft an individualized educational and disciplinary response to such behavior.
