Trump officials rescind school discipline policy

The Trump administration has formally scrapped an Obama-era policy that was meant to curb racial discrimination in schools but that became tangled in a national debate over school safety.

Officials from the Education and Justice departments finalized the rollback Friday, just days after it was proposed by a federal panel on school safety. President Trump formed the panel in March as the government’s response to the February school shooting in Parkland, Fla.

In revoking the rule, federal officials said they won’t intervene with schools’ disciplinary decisions as long as they don’t violate federal discrimination laws.

“Our decision to rescind that guidance today makes it clear that discipline is a matter on which classroom teachers and local school leaders deserve and need autonomy,” said Education Secretary Betsy DeVos. “I would encourage them to continue to implement discipline reforms that they believe will foster improved outcomes for their students.”

The 2014 policy urged schools not to suspend, expel or report students to police except as a last resort. Instead, it promoted “restorative” discipline measures that don’t remove students from the classroom. President Barack Obama’s administration issued the guidance after finding that black students across the U.S. were more than three times as likely to be disciplined as their white peers.

The policy also warned that schools could face federal investigations if their statistics showed a “disparate impact” for certain races. Schools that disciplined certain races at disproportionate rates, for example, could be found in violation of federal law even if it wasn’t through intentional discrimination.

Critics said the policy left schools afraid to take action against potentially violent students. The question came to the fore in the wake of the Parkland shooting, when some conservatives suggested the guidance might have deterred school officials from telling police about the suspected shooter’s behavioral problems.

Collin Binkley is an Associated Press writer.

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