Mother, son fight back against discriminatory school discipline in Georgia

E.C. turned 15 last September. He wasn’t at school, where he always celebrated his birthday with friends and ate pizza and cupcakes that his mother brought. Instead, he was at home in Georgia, isolated from his schoolmates and forced to take virtual learning during a nearly six-month punishment meted out by the Walton County, Georgia, school district.

“He didn’t celebrate at all this year,” his mother said. “Of my three children, E.C. was always my most joyful and outgoing. Now he’s depressed and doesn’t want to come out of his room. He’s not around his friends. He couldn’t go to homecoming, football games, is not allowed anywhere on Walton County property. He won’t open the blinds and sits in the dark. He wonders why the district ‘is doing this to me.’”

Last April, the school district expelled the Black student, who was an eighth grader at Loganville Middle School, after a substitute teacher caught him holding an electronic vape device. E.C. — whose name has been abbreviated in this story to protect the identity of a minor — was about to pass it to a white female student outside the adjacent girls’ and boys’ bathrooms. A third student, also white, had given it to E.C. to hand to that student’s girlfriend and then had quickly walked away.

As further punishment, E.C. was referred to youth court for possession of the vape — a misdemeanor under Georgia law setting 21 as the minimum age for vaping — placed in the alternative school program of virtual learning, and denied accommodations for special education services that he was receiving for attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD).

Of the three students involved, only E.C. was severely punished.

The two others denied that they had anything to do with the incident. The female student received no punishment, and the other boy told E.C. that he spent two days in in-school suspension, though the Southern Poverty Law Center, which is representing E.C. in a lawsuit on E.C.’s behalf, has no way of verifying the statement because schools do not disclose information about discipline against other students. What is clear is that administrators believed the white students over E.C.

In the Walton County School District, Black students make up 25% of the total school population yet account for nearly 41% of disciplined students, according to the Governor’s Office of Student Achievement.

In July, the SPLC filed an administrative complaint with the Georgia Department of Education, alleging that the school district violated the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act, and Title II of the Americans with Disabilities Act. The suit seeks remedies, including full compensation or funding for remedial services for E.C.; restoration of his individualized classroom instruction; and educational services he needs to get back on a college-track curriculum and graduate with his class.

“This case highlights the race disparities that persist in school discipline across Georgia, the South, and the U.S. The unequal treatment is obvious when you consider the actual consequences that the students received here,” said Eugene Choi, senior staff attorney with the SPLC’s Democracy: Education and Youth litigation team.

Widespread discriminatory discipline

The SPLC filed the lawsuit after lawyers met several times with district officials to try to resolve the dispute. The district responded by replacing his three, core, college-track classes with only one core subject and three elective classes. The school’s modification of his academic curriculum, together with his inability to learn online for more than a full high school semester, leaves him behind in his coursework and jeopardizes his goal of attending a four-year college and becoming a veterinarian.

In addition to the lawsuit, the SPLC in October filed a civil rights complaint with the U.S. Department of Education, Office of Civil Rights (OCR). It alleges that the district violated E.C’s rights under Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. That federal law prohibits discrimination based on race, color or national origin in programs and activities that receive federal financial assistance. The complaint also requests that OCR investigate the district’s systemic discrimination against Black students and students with disabilities.

E.C. remains under virtual learning until Loganville High School begins its next quarter on Jan. 2. To have his youth court case dismissed, E.C. is required to take a three-day “Alcohol and Drug Adolescent Substance Abuse Education Program.” He was scheduled to take the course earlier this month, but without a minimum of six students, the class was not held. The next class is scheduled to begin on Jan. 6, but unless six students sign up, E.C. will have to wait until whenever the class is held, and he is not permitted to return to school without taking it. The cost of the course to his mother is $160 in court costs and course fees.

“I’ve talked with other parents in my subdivision who have had to go up to the school and send emails regarding the way their children were being treated,” E.C.’s mother said. “One of my son’s friends is going through the same situation with Loganville Middle School. His mother shared with me the discrimination that is being done to her child and the mental and physical effects it has on her and her family. She was relieved to talk with me about how to handle the situation and get justice for her child. It breaks my heart that the district intentionally targets Black children and has policies in place to back their wrongful actions when it comes to race and discrimination.”

Education derailed

The basic facts of E.C.’s case don’t begin to tell the full truth of what has happened to him as a result of the district’s disciplinary actions.

He was diagnosed with ADHD in elementary school. In the eighth grade, he began working in class with a “co-teacher” to help him focus on completing his schoolwork. The assistance helped him to nearly double the number of class assignments he completed, from 45% of his work to 80% by the third quarter, according to his former co-teacher.

After the district withdrew this support during the fourth quarter, his grades significantly dropped. According to a formal complaint filed with the Georgia Department of Education, “his decreasing grades are evidence of his inability to receive a FAPE [free appropriate public education] in the [Alternative School] Program as required by federal law.”

E.C’s psychiatric physician described the damage that virtual learning was causing on his mental health.

In a report about E.C.’s condition, the physician wrote:

“Long-term expulsions/suspensions have significant detrimental impact to patients particularly with ADHD… ADHD patients typically do better with structured curriculum given their difficulties with concentration/focus and organization. Being at home in a virtual class with ten minutes of directions from a human, and then sitting alone on a computer program is not a structured classroom environment…Given the detrimental aspects of maintaining the expulsion our recommendation is for patient to return to in person schooling at his assigned school district. This recommendation is medically necessary given the worsening anxiety, mood changes, and disruption to his learning.”

The report changed nothing.

Time and again in Georgia, children like E.C. experience disparate treatment that puts them on a path to struggle.

“If you throw a dart at any county in Georgia and look at the stats, there will likely be a disproportionate number of Black students being disciplined in school,” the SPLC’s Choi said.

According to Only Young Once Georgia, an SPLC report scheduled to be released in December, Black youth are more than twice as likely as white students to be charged with an offense and more than three times as likely to be charged in court as an adult. In Georgia, Black children are 35.5% of the total youth population but account for over 60% of all youth court referrals, delinquent adjudications, incarcerated youth and youth sentenced in adult court.

The report will be the fourth and final in the Only Young Once series written by Delvin Davis, senior policy analyst for the SPLC who focuses on decarceration and criminal legal system reform. The series demonstrates that all five of the SPLC’s focus states — Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana and Mississippi — practice racially discriminatory school discipline, particularly for special education students. The practice feeds students into the school-to-prison pipeline and sets children up for a lifetime of low income and possible recidivism.

“Expulsions and alternative schools lead kids to spiral downward, not upward,” Davis said. “Schools lean on alternative schools as a means of discipline. Georgia lists virtual schooling as a disciplinary measure — and once a kid [with a disability] is out of traditional school, they lose a lot of services they need for a FAPE [free appropriate public education]. And then it’s hard to transition back to regular school.”

The color of injustice

E.C. said the white student, who he thought was his friend, asked him to hand the vape pen to his girlfriend. He said the boy said, “Quick, she’s in the bathroom.”

 “I got you,” E.C. replied, without thinking.

Speculating why the student didn’t give the device to his girlfriend himself, E.C. said, “I guess he didn’t want to take the risk.”

E.C. said that when he got in trouble, he didn’t want to give up his friend — at first.

“But after the assistant principal took me to his office and asked who else was with you, I thought about it and said to myself, ‘I’m not gonna take that.’ He [the white student] told me the next night that he was punished and wasn’t allowed to go to school the next day, but I know he lied to me because a group of friends posted a photo from school on their Instagram stories the next day, and I saw him. I texted him, asked him why he lied to me, and he blocked me. I never saw him again after he was called to the principal’s office.

“I was never in trouble before this. I always liked school. I was a good reader, though the ADHD made it tough because I couldn’t stay still. And I like the activities at school like basketball, homecoming, dances, Spark Out. That’s when at the end of each semester everyone goes outside at lunch and buys soda and chips and candy for a dollar. You can’t go unless you have points for good behavior, like helping another student and getting good grades. I went to the first and second one, and I had 1,000 points this year, but my phone went off in class, and I wasn’t allowed to go. I had to sit all day in in-school suspension.”

Picture at top: The Board of Education building in Georgia’s Walton County. A Black student at the county’s Loganville High School was expelled after he was caught holding a vape pen, though two white students involved in the incident were not similarly punished. (Credit: Hernan La Greca)