While Granite State students have some protections from discrimination under federal law, they are not given the same protections under state law. School discipline in New Hampshire is disproportionately strict on students of color and students with disabilities.
I support Senate Bill 263, anti-discrimination protection for students in public schools, to keep all youth in school and fortify their chance at a healthy and successful life beyond it.
My mother had a response every time I tried to claim my independence and demanded to walk to school alone. To and from the taxi cab she hailed, I stomped my feet hoping to shake ground beneath my steps, agitated and confused as to why I couldn’t just walk the eight blocks to school. I was 11 years old and relied on my imagination to picture what the world looked like between school and home.
“You’ll understand when you have children,” she would say, and as I grew older, I witnessed just how easy it was for children to choose the street life.
My mother’s discomfort rested in how much easier it was for the streets to choose you back, even within those short eight blocks. If I wasn’t in her sight, the safest place to be was school.
My mother trusted few but had faith that schools would naturally do what it takes to protect me and keep students away from the streets. That level of protection was seldom enforced at school, and after a while, it was hard to differentiate between the classroom and street corners as I became better acquainted with empty desks.
Some of the absent students were either suspended or expelled from school – bored and easily persuaded.
When you move to New Hampshire, you expected to find something different. Surprisingly, I ended up witnessing the same circumstances. Students – of color and or with disabilities in particular – are spending a significant amount of time away from school and support services school provides youth and families.
Currently, the state doesn’t provide students with state-level protection against discrimination. In addition, many residents would believe that the hostile race climate is foreign to the Granite State.
However, most of the egregious cases of racism and discrimination have occurred on school grounds.
SB 263 would fill this gap and provide our students with protections against discrimination based on age, sex, gender identity, sexual orientation, race, color, marital status, familial status, physical or mental disability religion or national origin. It would also enable the N.H. Department of Justice’s Civil Rights Unit to engage in cases of discrimination and protect our students.
Without this bill, legislators would be allowing the continued disproportional use of discipline on students from historically marginalized communities.
In a reactive response to the near-hanging of an 8-year-old biracial child in Claremont, Gov. Chris Sununu established an Advisory Council on Diversity and Inclusion, tasked with assessing New Hampshire laws, regulations, and agency policies and procedures to recommend changes to combat discrimination. During a series of statewide listening sessions, parents repeated concerns about students being discriminated against in school with few options with which to respond.
Currently, the NHDOJ does not have the authority to intervene in cases of student discrimination. Today, students of color and students with disabilities in New Hampshire are twice as likely to get suspended as their white, non-disabled peers.
A report from the Juvenile Reform Project, a coalition of New Hampshire advocacy organizations, determined that students of color, 14 percent of the general student population, comprised about 23 percent of suspensions; students with disabilities, at 20 percent, comprised around 40 percent of suspensions.
Given the national urgency to protect youth during school hours, legislators have turned to discussions about protecting students with firearms without looking to introduce a multi-tiered system of support for students with behavioral issues, update suspension guidelines and help prevent students’ exposure to adverse childhood experiences. This starts with the state.
Legislators are responsible to all New Hampshire students as the state and its schools are not immune to racism, ableism and other types of discrimination. Our legislators must prioritize the safety and security of our youth, and work diligently to eradicate prejudice and discriminatory procedure in our schools.
We cannot solely rely on the federal government, much less an administration that has deliberately supported or enabled policy against under-represented communities.
No student should be discriminated against, and if they are, they should have legal recourse. SB 263 is the first step to ensuring our schools become a safe and inclusive environment for all.
(Pedro E. Altagracia lives in Concord.)