Fact Sheet: President Donald J. Trump Reinstates Commonsense School Discipline Policies

TLDR

This “fact” sheet is for an executive order that claims to restore “objective” school discipline by overturning guidance that addressed racial disparities in disciplinary actions. It mischaracterizes previous policies as requiring racial quotas, when they actually aimed to identify potential civil rights violations through data analysis. The order makes unsupported claims about previous policies causing increased disorder and violence, ignores extensive research on racial disparities in subjective discipline enforcement, and misrepresents the development process of previous guidance.

This “fact” sheet for a recent executive order misrepresents the 2014 Obama administration guidance, which did not require schools to “impose discipline in a manner designed to equalize disciplinary rates by race.” The guidance actually aimed to identify potential civil rights violations through disparate impact analysis while explicitly stating that schools should enforce discipline rules fairly and consistently regardless of race.

It claims that discipline policies addressing racial disparities have caused “increased levels of classroom disorder and school violence” but provides no evidence establishing this causal relationship. Research has shown mixed results on this connection, with multiple studies finding no significant increases in school violence attributable to these policies.

Furthermore, it creates a false equivalence between policies that track racial disparities to identify potential discrimination and “racially preferential discipline practices.” The guidance documents did not advocate for different rules based on race but instead called for examining why facially neutral policies might produce disparate outcomes.

The fact sheet also selectively quotes from the 2018 Federal Commission on School Safety report without acknowledging that the report itself faced criticism for methodological limitations and for dismissing substantial research showing persistent racial discipline disparities that could not be explained by behavioral differences alone.

The assertion that Title VI enforcement was “weaponized” mischaracterizes legitimate civil rights enforcement. Title VI prohibits discrimination in federally funded programs, and examining statistical disparities as potential evidence of discrimination is a standard legal approach recognized by courts.

Research has consistently shown that subjective infractions (like “disrespect” or “defiance”) are applied disproportionately to students of color compared to white students exhibiting similar behaviors, undermining the claim that discipline was not already based on “objective behavior.”

The referenced executive order represents a significant shift in federal civil rights enforcement in education, not a “commonsense” restoration. Multiple studies have documented that Black students are 3-4 times more likely to be suspended than white students for similar behaviors. The 2014 and 2023 guidance documents were developed in response to extensive data collection and civil rights investigations that identified persistent patterns of disparate treatment.

The claim that previous policies prioritized “teachers’ unions” over students and parents misrepresents the extensive input from educational researchers, civil rights organizations, student advocates, and community stakeholders that informed these policies.

The assertion that the Department of Education’s civil rights enforcement makes schools less safe contradicts research showing that positive, supportive discipline approaches often improve school climate and safety more effectively than exclusionary discipline.