By Jory Steele

The school-to-prison pipeline is a heartbreaking problem with huge costs to our state. Not only are we paying more in criminal justice costs than it would take to educate every young person, California is losing the creative energy and productivity of too many students — especially students of color.

The legislature is considering taking a huge towards disrupting California’s school-to-prison pipeline. Assembly Bill 420, which requires approval by the Senate and Governor, will provide educators the guidance they need to keep more kids in front of a blackboard instead of behind bars.

California issues too many suspensions and expulsions, sending students on unsupervised vacations rather than keeping students in school and learning. In fact, California public schools suspend almost twice as many students as they graduate each year.

If you think that suspensions and expulsions cannot play a major role in sending kids into the criminal justice system, think again. Just one suspension triples a child’s likelihood of becoming entangled in the juvenile justice system within one year. A single suspension also makes that child five times more likely to drop out of school. The fact is that harsh punishment like suspensions, which are all-too-easily handed out, is often among the first stops along a pipeline to prison and the unrealized potential of our youth.

And the cost to our state is staggering. Incarcerating just one juvenile costs roughly $200,000 more per year than does educating her.

Let’s consider the role that race plays in determining a student’s likelihood of suspension. Young people of color in our state are much more likely to be suspended than white kids for the same behavior. Vague infractions, such as “willful defiance” can include missing a homework assignment or even wearing a hat. In fact, African-American kids are over four times more likely to be suspended than white kids for this largely undefined infraction.

This is California in 2013. It is mind-boggling that the color of a child’s skin can play such a significant role in the treatment they receive in our schools, and ultimately, in setting the course for their future.

There is one important step we can take towards fairness, justice and safety in 2014, though. AB 420 would bar “willful defiance” suspensions in elementary schools. It preserves educators’ ability to suspend older children for “willful defiance,” but only as a last resort, after other alternatives have been utilized.

AB 420 leaves in place 23 other grounds for suspension or expulsion, giving educators the discretion they need to maintain discipline. It places appropriate limits, though, on this subjective and overused ground for suspension that is so disproportionately applied to children of color.

“Equal treatment for children in unequal situations is not justice,” Governor Jerry Brown stated emphatically in his State of the State speech this year. The Governor’s clever turn of phrase depends upon one fact being universally accepted:

Unequal treatment for children in equal situations is also not justice.

Jory Steele is the Education Equity Project Director at the ACLU of Northern California.

By Jory Steele, Director, Education Equity Project, ACLU of Northern California

It should come as no surprise to Californians that our public schools are in crisis.  Headlines regularly decry California’s fiscal crisis and its devastating impact on our schools. One issue recently receiving a lot of attention is the shockingly high rates of suspension and expulsion, particularly for students of color, across the state.

Legislators and Gov. Jerry Brown are taking note.  This was a banner year for school discipline legislation. The legislature sent seven bills to Gov. Brown’s desk designed to reduce both the rates of suspension and expulsion and their disparate effects on students of color. We applaud Gov. Brown’s decision to sign five of those bills, which means that more students will stay in school, thereby improving their educational opportunities.

Does suspending students improve their behavior? Far from it. Students who are suspended or expelled even once are five times more likely to drop out, six times more likely to repeat a grade and three times more likely to have contact with the juvenile justice system in the following year than similar students who are not suspended or expelled. Schools with high rates of suspension do not perform well academically, meaning that all students in the school suffer.

According to a recent report, African American boys in Oakland were suspended at six times the rate of white boys last year alone.  An April 2012 report by the Civil Rights Project at UCLA reveals that in Stockton Unified School District, 38 percent of African American boys, 28 percent of American Indian boys and 19 percent of Latino boys were suspended at least once during the 2009-10 school year.  Last year, one high school in Stockton had a breathtaking 92 percent suspension rate.  Ninety-two percent.

School administrators are concerned about this problem.  A September report by Oakland-based EdSource found that 80 percent of respondents (who were school administrators) are concerned about the disproportionate impact of discipline policies on students of color.

While signing these bills addressing school discipline is significant, it is disappointing that Governor Brown vetoed AB 2242, which would have provided clearer guidelines on disciplining students for “willful defiance.”  Data show that some of the greatest racial disparities in discipline occur when discretionary disciplinary categories such as “willful defiance” are used.  AB 2242 would also have been responsive to the concerns of more than 80 percent of EdSource survey respondents seeking a clearer definition to vague terms such as “willful defiance.”

Though Gov. Brown missed an important opportunity by vetoing the bill, we nonetheless made great progress this year in helping to ensure equal educational opportunity for all students and are girded to continue the fight for further reforms next year.  

By Alicia M. Walters

Doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result is a popular definition of insanity. Those of us across the country trying repeatedly to pass bills that would prohibit the shackling of pregnant women in jails and prisons are hardly insane. Dedicated? Yes. Stubborn? Possibly. Unwilling to accept women suffering? Absolutely.

This year marks the third attempt to get a signature on a bipartisan, unanimously supported bill in California (AB 2530) that would ban the practice of putting incarcerated pregnant women in dangerous shackles. Similar bills have passed two previous legislative sessions with overwhelming support from both political parties, only to be vetoed. Opposition from the powerful law enforcement lobby surely played a role in these vetoes. But we have persevered, and this year we’ve been successful in keeping law enforcement neutral. While we’re happy with this progress, we still need the Governor to sign the bill.

We’ve kept at this for several years for a fundamental reason: Shackling is dangerous for a woman and her baby. It’s well-documented that shackling pregnant women causes them to fall. Falls could cut off oxygen to the fetus and could lead to miscarriage, stillbirth, or fatally premature birth.

Despite how long it took us to convince law enforcement, the general public has gotten it right from the start. Whenever I talk to folks about how we’re trying to stop California jails and prisons from shackling pregnant women, the most popular response is, “What?! We even need a law for that? Seems like common sense.”

Yes, folks. It is common sense. The vast majority of incarcerated women are behind bars for low-level offenses and exhibit no violent behavior. The majority of women do not pose a security or flight risk, and with pregnant women, the risk is even less likely. So why is a state like California – a state once at the forefront of ensuring the health and safety of pregnant women in so many ways – resisting this?

Third time’s a charm. Whatever it takes, this must be the year. Take action and tell Governor Brown to sign AB 2530. Enough is enough.

Alicia M. Walters is a Reproductive Justice Advocate for the ACLU of Northern California

By Phyllida Burlingame

California state law mandates that sexual health education in public schools be comprehensive, medically accurate, science-based, and bias-free. So why are Clovis Unified high schools teaching teens from a book that makes no mention of condoms, even in chapters about HIV/AIDS and on preventing STDs and unintended pregnancy?

Recent events, such as Representative Akin’s ill-informed statements about reproductive biology and rape – put the issue in a stark light. The brand of sex ed that Clovis high schools are peddling is putting teens’ health at risk – it’s dangerous, unlawful, and could have serious consequences if it is not stopped.

Instead of getting critical information about condoms and contraception, teens in the city’s high schools are told that to prevent STDs and unintended pregnancies, they should just “practice abstinence,” “respect yourself,” “get plenty or rest,” and “go out as a group.”

It gets worse. The curriculum teaches that all people, even adults, should avoid sexual activity until they are married. Additional materials compare a woman who is not a virgin to a dirty shoe and suggest that men are unable to stop themselves once they become sexually aroused.

The ACLU is representing parents, physicians and the GSA Network in a lawsuit against the Clovis Unified School District over this outrageous and ill-conceived curriculum.

Students need – and deserve – complete, accurate information to help them make healthy decisions. This is especially important in areas like California’s Central Valley, where Clovis is located. The Central Valley has limited access to reproductive health services and high rates of unintended pregnancy and increasing sexually transmitted infections among youth. At a time when there are cuts to so many services and programs for youth, we must demand that schools be a reliable place for young people to get health information.

Clovis schools need to do better by their students, by teaching comprehensive sex education that promotes healthy relationships, healthy decisions, and healthy futures for youth.

Read more about the case.

Phyllida Burlingame is the Reproductive Justice Policy Director at the ACLU of Northern California.

By Maggie Crosby, ACLU of Northern California

Across the country we’re seeing ongoing attacks on access to reproductive health care. Massive attacks. The Guttmacher Institute released data last week detailing that, just a few months into 2012, hundreds of provisions to restrict abortion access have been introduced in state legislatures around the country. Several have already been enacted. Now, more than ever, it’s vitally important that California move in the opposite direction and continue its role as a national leader in ensuring that women have access to reproductive health care.

State Senator Christine Kehoe introduced SB 1338, which would remove barriers to care by allowing nurse practitioners, certified nurse midwives, and physician assistants to perform early abortions after completing thorough training. (An extensive study conducted by the University of California San Francisco showed that these trained medical professionals provide this care as safely as doctors.)

SB 1338, the Safe and Early Access bill, will be heard in Senate Business, Professions and Economic Development Committee next week on Monday, April 23.

Roughly half of California’s counties lack an accessible abortion provider. As a result, many women delay treatment because they have to travel long distances or raise money for transportation and services. Consider the story of Jane, a single mom living near Lake Tahoe. She was not able to obtain an abortion at her local provider. Instead she had to take Amtrak to San Francisco to have an abortion. Because of the train schedule, she arrived the day before her appointment and had no place to stay. She spent her first night in the hospital’s bathroom, saving her money for food. No one should face these kinds of hurdles to access a safe and legal medical procedure.

The Safe and Early Access bill would remove these barriers to care by allowing specially trained health professionals to provide early, safe abortion services in the communities they serve. It would also help overcome other barriers such as long wait times for appointments that woman in urban areas face when seeking health care services.

Most women already receive basic reproductive health care from clinicians like nurse practitioners. And these clinicians currently provide medication abortions as well as services like vasectomy and colonoscopy.

Passing this bill would allow women in every part of our state to receive early, safe abortion care from providers they already know and trust, in their own communities.

Affirming the importance Californians place on protecting women’s reproductive health and rights, March 2012 polling by the Public Policy Institute of California showed overwhelming public support for legal abortion. It’s time to take the next step, California. Let’s make these rights a reality for all women in our state.

The ACLU of California supports the striking prisoners’ demands to end cruel and inhumane conditions in the Security Housing Unit (SHU) at Pelican Bay State Prison. These conditions include prolonged, solitary confinement in small, windowless concrete boxes with little to no human interaction and other severe physical deprivations.

Not only are such conditions inhumane and harmful, but they also jeopardize public safety. Solitary confinement causes and exacerbates mental illness, and prisoners who are subjected to such extreme isolation cannot properly reintegrate into society, resulting in higher recidivism rates.

An alarming number of prisoners are released directly from secure housing units into the community. The California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation (CDCR) must implement policies that enhance safety both within prisons and within our communities. Current practices do not achieve these equally important goals.

The ACLU calls on the State to re-double its efforts to engage in meaningful negotiations with the strikers to bring the hunger strike to a swift and peaceful conclusion. In addition, the ACLU calls on Governor Brown and CDCR Secretary, Matthew Cate, to significantly curtail the use of the SHU at Pelican Bay and other California prisons and to provide all prisoners confined to the SHU items, services, and programs necessary for psychological and physical well-being including warm clothing, out-of-cell time, and participation in rehabilitative programs.