Zero tolerance policies aim to ensure safety and fairness in schools but are often applied inconsistently. While they can protect victims and prevent unfair targeting of minorities in discipline, the policies are frequently taken to extremes. Modifications are needed, such as greater flexibility, graduated discipline systems, and programs targeting at-risk students, in order to balance safety, fairness, and avoid negative outcomes. A complete removal of zero tolerance would not achieve this balance as well as properly modified policies could.

1. Hannah Ross
Ros Banda
EDL 204
10 December 2013
Adjusting our Tolerance for Zero Tolerance: Ensuring Social Order in the Context of
Discipline in the Classroom
While the idea of schools ensuring democracy among students by providing a safe
atmosphere is a widely accepted concept, there is a considerable amount of dispute
concerning how schools should do that, and whether or not their current policies for
doing so are working. While harassment itself can be an exceedingly difficult matter to
handle, much of the cause for the wide array of opinions stems from how closely
intertwined this issue is with issues of issues in today’s schools. The connection of
bullying with diversity lies first in the fact that students of any type of minority are more
likely to be victimized. The other primary connection between these two concerns is the
propensity for students of minorities, especially non-white males, to be disciplined
considerably more often than any other group of students. One method of dealing with
this multi-faceted issue, zero tolerance, has recently come under attack for its strict
disciplinary procedures, and many think it would be best to completely do away with
such policies. However, because of the trends among both who is victimized as well as
who is most commonly punished in bullying situations, the best way for schools to
approach discipline is to implement zero tolerance policies with significant modifications
in order to find the best balance of providing a fair and safe atmosphere. In order to show
this, we will look at why zero tolerance works well to serve victims, how it helps to level
the playing field for who receives discipline, and finally take a look at the modifications
necessary for zero tolerance to have the highest level of functionality.

2. In order to arrive at the most effective solution for this problem, it is important to
look closely at the issue itself: the victimization of students through various types of
offenses. One does not have to look very far to observe this problem, for stories of
suspensions, shootings, and even suicides have become almost common in the news and
media. In fact, according to the federal government’s bullying prevention website, 20%
of students in grades 9-12 nationwide have experienced bullying at some point. When
analyzing this issue, we see that the private views of individuals concerning different
groups of people manifest themselves in a very public way when institutions are affected
because of these views. Of particular prominence, however, is the bullying and
harassment directed towards females, members of the GLBTQ community, and students
of other exceptionalities or belonging to other minority groups. As schools attempt to
combat the results from such offenses, the politics of identity overwhelmingly get in the
way, for the tendency for students with varying identities to be victimized is a clear trend
(Katz 2010). In this way, the narrative of “Minority as Victim” plays an important role in
both shaping and exposing this issue.
With the wide range of offenses that occur in schools, it is clear that standards for
safety need to be implemented in classrooms. Especially with the likelihood for
individuals of various minorities to be harassed, zero tolerance policies help to solve this
issue by providing a more secure protection for students by holding schools accountable
through an inability to ignore offenses that occur. Zero tolerance policies directly
confront the reality of the kind of behaviors that happen in schools, and, solely because of
their ruthless nature, allow educators to “limit the kinds of situations which have led to
[suicide] because of harassment” (Perez 2009). Furthermore, most students, who are the

3. very ones at risk of suffering from the unintended consequences of such policies, favor
having zero tolerance in place. Even those who once bullied others have the outlook that
“if everything were taken from them…[bullying] would have stopped” (Debreuil 2010).
While a focus on protecting minorities who are victimized is important in
ensuring democracy in schools, it is equally important to guarantee that minorities are not
unfairly targeted in the discipline process. However, research suggests that schools are
far from meeting this ideal. According to reporter Tamar Lewin, data from the
Department of Education suggests that “black students, especially males, face much
harsher discipline in public schools,” and that males of color or disability are punished
decisively more often than other students (Lewin 2012). While the tendency is to shift the
blame for such data to these students simply having poor behavior, Howard Witt suggests
that “there simply isn't any support for the notion that…African-American kids act out to
a greater degree than other kids” (Witt 2007). When approaching the issue from this
angle, we see that the private views of those in authority in schools also affect public
institutions, because, as Witt goes on to explain, the fact that discipline for males of
minority is not only more frequent, but also more severe, suggests that what is going on
here is, in fact, institutional racism.
Because of this polarizing environment, it stands to reason that providing policies
that create a level playing field for students would aid in putting an end to minority
students being singled out for disciplinary action. As educational psychologist Ronnie
Casella explains, the expectation with zero tolerance procedures is that “by removing
subjective influences from disciplinary decisions, such policies would be fair to students
traditionally overrepresented in school disciplinary consequences” (Casella, 2003). As

4. Rausch and Skiba aptly point out in their analysis of disproportionality in student
discipline, schools need to ensure that “any educational interventions do not
disproportionately create negative outcomes for students based on background
characteristics” (Rausch and Skiba, 2004). Proper modification to current zero tolerance
policies would help to guarantee that every student is held to the same standard in the
discipline process, ensuring both safety and fairness to children in schools.
Given the benefits it has for both victims and those who are unjustly disciplined, I
believe that the implementation of zero tolerance policies at schools nationwide would
help to best ensure social order in the classroom, but dialogue with my peers helped me
to see some of the shortcomings of current zero tolerance procedures. Individuals in the
group with whom I discussed this topic believed that research suggests that zero tolerance
should be abolished completely. To support this claim, they pointed to various incidents
where these policies have been taken to an extreme, which indicate that these policies can
“traumatize its victims, create unhealthy school climates, hurt academics, and harm the
very students it is supposed to protect” (Ferronato& Carbon, 2012). Such incidents in
which these policies were taken to the extreme ranged from a girl having to appear in
court for a “criminal misdemeanor” after spraying perfume in class, to another student
who was arrested for throwing paper airplanes (McGreal, 2012). Such severity of
punishments reflects the trope of hyperbole about student criminality that has been
present in our country before, such as in the early 1990s when juvenile crime rates were
on the rise. Perhaps most important in shaping my argument was their pointing me to the
idea that this policy has been “plagued by inconsistent enforcement and inadequate

5. security,” using this to suggest that such programs ought to be abolished (Michigan,
2010).
The fact that these policies have been misused at many of the schools at which
they have been implemented is what drove me to postulate that zero tolerance needs to be
fine tuned rather than completely abandoned. Given the potential it carries to promote
democracy with the best balance of safety and equity, I think that a deeper look into the
issue suggests that making the necessary changes to these policies would benefit our
schools more than doing away with it would. If these policies were being used exactly as
they were intended to be used but still not showing any progress, then we would have
sufficient reason to believe that ending such programs would be the best decision for
students. However, the fact that every argument against these policies is because of
things such as “inconsistent enforcement and inadequate security” rather than the nature
of the policies themselves suggests that these policies could still have a considerable
amount of effectiveness with the proper modifications.
According to the American Psychiatric Association’s Zero Tolerance Task force,
reformations of zero tolerance lie in two key areas: practice and policy. In the area of
“practice,” modifications should primarily involve using these policies with a greater
flexibility. This would mean a steadfastly holding to the subjective nature of the policies,
but having teachers and others in authority take a closer look at the contextual
circumstances surrounding offenses. Reformations for zero tolerance concerning “policy”
revolve around replacing “one-size-fits all disciplinary strategies with graduated systems
of discipline,” which would ensure that only the most serious disruptive behaviors
receive the most serious of consequences (APA, 2008). Additionally, zero tolerance

6. efforts could also be aided with better targeting at-risk students with programs such a
behavioral support and positive behavior interventions (Glenn & Larsen, 2012). While
no system of discipline will ever be perfect, making adjustments such as the ones
mentioned here would help to promote holistic safety as well as fair discipline in way that
a complete removal of zero tolerance would leave us unable to achieve.
After looking at the types of students who are most frequently victimized and the
students who are most prone to receiving punishment, it is clear that significant strides
must be taken in order to ensure a learning environment that ensures both fairness and
safety to all students. A cost-benefit analysis of zero tolerance policies shows that, in
their essence, these procedures can help to guarantee such an atmosphere for students that
other regulations are not able to. Because of the likelihood of these rules to be misused
or not implemented correctly, a careful modification of these policies would effectively
promote democracy in our schools by not overlooking any minority group in the
disciplinary process.

7. Works Cited
American Psychological Association (2008).Are Zero Tolerance Policies Effective in
Schools? American Psychological Association Zero Tolerance Task Force.
Retrieved from http://www.apa.org/pubs/info/reports/zero-tolerance.pdf
Casella, R. (2003). Zero tolerance policy in schools: Rationale, consequences, and
alternatives. Teachers College Record, 105, 872-892.
Debreuil, J., Andreadis, C., & Martinez-Ramundo, D. (2010, October 13). From school
bully to role model. ABCnews.go.com. Available at
http://abcnews.go.com/2020/TheLaw/reformed-bullies-tolerancestop/story?id=11873884
Ferronato, R. & Carbon, S. (2012. August 14). Bullying + zero tolerance ≠ safe schools.
HuffingtonPost.com. Retrieve from http://www.huffingtonpost.com/rayferronato/bullying-zero-tolerance-s_b_1776635.html
Glenn, J. & Larsen, E. F. (2012, October 26). How can we make middle school less
awful? Slate.com. Retrieve from
http://www.slate.com/articles/life/family/2012/10/how_can_we_make_middle_sc
hool_less_awful.html
Katz, N. (2010). Schools Battle Suicide Surge, Anti-gay bullying. CBS News. Retrieved
from http://www.cbsnews.com/ news/schools- battle-suicide -surge-anti-gay-bullying/
Lewin, T. (2012, March 6). Black students face more discipline, data suggests. New York
Times. Available at http://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/06/education/blackstudents-face-more-harsh-discipline-data-shows.html?hp
McGreal, C. (2012, January 9). The US schools with their own police. The Guardian.
Available at http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/jan/09/texas-police-schools
Michigan State University (2010, May 11). Zero tolerance ineffective in schools, study
finds. ScienceDaily. Available at
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/05/100510132157.htm

8. Perez, E. (2009, December 17).California Schools Need Zero Tolerance Assault &
Harassment Policy [Web log comment].California National Organization for
Women. Retrieved on February 8, 2011 from
http://www.canow.org/canoworg/2009/12/california-schools-need-zero-toleranceassault-harassment-policy.html.
Rausch, M. K & Skiba, R. (2004).Disproportionality in school discipline among minority
students in Indiana: Description and analysis. Center for Evaluation and Education
Policy, Indiana University.Retrieved on November 3, 2011 f rom
http://www.eric.ed.gov:80/PDFS/ED488897.pdf.
Witt, H. (2007, September 25) School discipline tougher on African Americans.The
Chicago Tribune. Retrieved from http://www.chicagotribune.com/chi070924discipline,
0,6234772.story.