NYU Metro's Education Justice Research and Organizing Collaborative (EJ-ROC) partnered with Alliance for Quality Education (AQE) to complete a data analysis for a new report, Systemic Racism and New York State’s School to Prison Pipeline. The report finds that school disciplinary actions that disproportionately target Black and Latinx youth are feeding the school to prison pipeline. The report underscores the urgent need for the State Legislature to pass the Judge Judith S. Kaye Solutions Not Suspensions Bill (S767A), which would make changes to school disciplinary policies statewide to end the targeting of Black and Latinx students.
By analyzing data on school suspensions, referrals by schools to law enforcement, and youth detention in the criminal justice system in five cities across New York State (Albany, Buffalo, New York City, Rochester and Utica), the report shows that Black youth are by far the most likely to be targeted for suspensions, referrals to law enforcement and juvenile detention, in great disproportion to their representation in the youth population in their communities.