What Does is Mean to Be Anti-Racist

A student repeatedly taps a pencil on a desk. Maybe it helps the student concentrate, relieve stress, or remember the lesson. An educator may speak to the student about self-awareness or provide a fidget toy. If the student is Black, an educator may be more likely to view the behavior as disruptive or defiant. This could easily lead to a referral, in-school suspension, or an Individualized Education Program (IEP) for behavior.

"I've witnessed several teachers put 'tapping a pencil on the desk' in an IEP," says Shana Balton, a middle school math and social studies teacher, in Wichita, Kan. "I've worked in four different schools, and it's mainly Black boys who are put on behavioral plans. … The IEP can be helpful, but it also can be weaponized."

If a student transfers to a new school or district, she explains, the IEP follows and shows the previous teachers' complaints. The information tells the new teacher: This child is disruptive, which could reinforce negative subconscious feelings about boys of color, Balton says.

Before long, a student is trapped in a system that's intended to help, but instead causes harm. This is systemic racism playing out in real-time.

Systemic racism is a policy, embedded in an organization's normal practice, that negatively affects a particular group of people, and ripples across other areas of society as well. In this case, it impacts students of color disproportionately and fuels the school-to-prison pipeline.

Yale professor Jayanti Owens designed an experiment to identify disparities in school discipline. She produced videos of White, Black, and Latino teenage male actors performing three identical behaviors: Slamming a door twice, texting repeatedly during a test, and throwing a pencil into the trash can and crumpling a test booklet.

In the experiment, conducted in 2022, more than 1,300 teachers from nearly 300 middle and high schools watched the videos and were asked how they would respond to the incidents.

The findings? Educators were 6.6 percentage points more likely to send a Black student to the principal's office than a White student.

The study also found that about 25 percent of the difference was driven by the perception that Black boys are more "blameworthy" than White or Latino boys.

This reinforces existing research that shows Black students-particularly girls-are seen as being older and more knowledgeable of adult topics. So they often receive harsher punishments. But these systems can be broken down, Ballard says.

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