The Racist History Behind School Suspensions: An Interview with Aaron Kupchik, author of "Suspended Education"

The Racist History Behind School Suspensions: An Interview with Aaron Kupchik, author of "Suspended Education"

Why has suspension become a commonly used form of punishment? This is a central question I answer in my new book. What I found is that suspension first became common as a way of removing unwanted Black students from formerly all-white schools in the years after schools desegregated. Schools resisted desegregation efforts, and rather than accepting Black students with open arms they saw them as problems to be managed, often by suspending them fro…