(Joshua Paladino, Headline USA) The Clover Park School District near Tacoma, Washington, passed a resolution on March 14 to mandate “cultural discipline,” under which punishments for misbehavior will depend upon a student’s cultural and racial background.
In practice, the new policy means that white students will face harsher punishments than non-white students. The school board adopted the resolution on a 3-2 vote, 100PercentFedUp reported.
Unreal. @CloverParkSD passed a policy last week for “cultural discipline.” It means staff will consider a student’s race before punishment to ensure discipline is dispersed “equitably” pic.twitter.com/WXhZLYfd61
— Libs of Tik Tok (@libsoftiktok) March 22, 2022
White students comprise only 28 percent of students in the the Clover Park School District.
The anti-white policy relies on the logic of disproportionate impact, which states that an ethnic group cannot be punished at a higher rate than its proportion of the population.
For example, if blacks make 10 percent of the population but commit 50 percent of all crimes, then this indicates a racist justice system—not an underlying problem among blacks.
Deputy Superintendent Brian Laubach explained “culturally responsive discipline.”
“Essentially they’re referring there, that you look at ‘are you dispersing discipline across the ethnicities, the racial groups equitably,’ right?,” he said.
“So, are you disciplining African-American boys more than you’re disciplining white boys, right? So, are you paying attention to all of that in your data?”
Board member Anthony Veliz said that the policy means teachers must ask students to explain their reasons for violating school rules.
“What if, you know, just saying, like, in my background, what if that type of rule that we broke was more acceptable at my house, right, versus your house?” Veliz said.
Some cultures have norms that do not match the school’s rules, which teachers must account for when disciplining students.
“And, you know, when I’m talking to them, like, ‘hey, you know what, actually, I thought I was OK, I thought it was fine to grab that piece of pizza before anybody else. Because in my house, I’m allowed to do that.’ Right?,” Veliz said.
