LOS ANGELES - School suspensions were once reserved for serious offenses including fighting and bringing weapons or drugs on campus. But these days they're just as likely for talking back to a teacher, cursing, walking into class late or even eye rolling.
More than 40 percent of suspensions in California are for "willful defiance," or any behavior that disrupts class, and critics say it's a catchall that needs to be eliminated because it's overused for trivial offenses and disproportionately used against black and Latino boys.
"It's so broad it's not useful," said Marqueece Harris-Dawson, president and chief executive of the nonprofit South Los Angeles Community Coalition. "You can't quite define what it means, what it doesn't mean."
Assemblyman Roger Dickinson, a Sacramento Democrat, earlier this year introduced a bill to remove willful defiance as a reason for suspension and expulsion. His bill, AB 2242, would replace that category with specific behaviors such as harassment, threats, intimidation, creating substantial disorder or a hostile environment.
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Willful defiance is coming under scrutiny as attention focuses on whether "zero tolerance" discipline policies instituted in many schools in the 1990s are working, especially for minority students.
A report by the U.S. Department of Education's civil rights office last fall found vast disparities in the use of suspensions and expulsions against students of color.
Black students comprise 18 percent of public school enrollment nationwide, but 35 percent of suspensions and 39 percent of expulsions, the report stated.
Most school districts across the country stipulate defiance or insubordination as a cause for discipline. The key is the punishment meted out for the offense.
Baltimore City Public Schools slashed the number of suspensions from nearly 27,000 in 2003-04 to just over 11,000 in 2010-11 after revising its disciplinary policies. A suspension for defiance is now only given if it's a repeated offense, according to district data.
In California, a UCLA report found students of color are most often suspended for infractions relating to disrespect, defiance and disobedience.
""A white girl can scream and slam books on the desk and not be seen as threatening, but a black boy can do half of that and it can be taken as 'he's going to hit me,'" Harris-Dawson said.
South Los Angeles high school senior Brett Williams said he feels teachers use defiance as an excuse not to hear the students' side. "It's like sit down and shut up," the 18-year-old said.
At Garfield High School in East Los Angeles, defiance is no longer used. The school has a progressive discipline system where teachers and counselors intervene before a situation reaches the dean and principal. Parents are called and offenders ordered to write apology letters, apologize publicly, or spend lunch in the dean's office.
Last year, the school had only one suspension and has had only one so far this year.
