On Another View with Barbara Hamm Lee, author Dr. Monique Morris shares her insight on African-American girl’s plight in school and their struggle to succeed in the school and child judicial system. In her latest book Pushout: The Criminalization of Black Girls in Schools she examines this issue and highlights solutions that will help to enhance the education experience for girls.

On the back of Pushout’s cover, you will find a brief story of Diamond, a fifteen-year-old girl who was expelled and stopped attending school for lashing out at other students after being constantly harassed. While the school staff had only seen that she was lashing out at her peers, they did not know why. After months of being teased about being trafficked for sex, she’d had enough. Diamond ran away and was eventually arrested and sent to a detention center for not attending school.

According to Morris’ research “black girls make up more than one-third of all girls with a school-related arrest.” While there is a big focus on African-American boys and the school to prison pipeline, little research is done on Black girls facing the same issues.

Morris says she decided to explore this topic because she felt many times that the girls going through these horrible experiences in schools are not really the ones telling their stories, if they do have the opportunity to be told at all. So she spoke with girls around the country herself to best share their stories first hand.

“We are all experts on our own experience, and so it was really important for me to share their expertise with everyone.” she says.

Interview highlights

On why she focused on a specific group of girls, who they are, and why.

“I took the approach of starting with girls who had experienced school push out. People who had historically been labeled as dropouts. People who have been experiencing many different conditions in policies and practices that have turned them away from school.”

If we know that education plays this big role, then let’s talk to girls who have had trouble with education, and who have ended up in the juvenile legal system.”

On how black girls are often misunderstood for being defiant when they are speaking up for themselves.

“There is a girl in the book that I talked to, the 13-year-old, black Latina who talks about the attitude. She says, ’Us black girls, if we don’t get it we are going to tell you, if we don’t think something’s right we are going to tell you. We are going to speak up, we are going to speak what’s on our mind.’ I use that often as an example to show how black girls, black women in our tradition, speaking up and speaking out is essential to our survival. In our discourses, and in many of our families, and even during Black history month, when we start to celebrate the women who made that contribution to society, the advancement of democracy, we’re talking about women who spoke up, who spoke out.”

“However, in many of our spaces, and especially in our learning spaces, the interpretation of black girls as being a group of girls who might speak out is read as something that is a counter to dominant expressions of femininity, or acceptable expressions of femininity. There is one administrator who says, “Our girls aren’t docile,” for example. That is one of the reasons why girls get sent to his office, if they are not docile, and they challenge the teacher, it’s not read as an exchange, it’s not read as a reflection of their critical thinking, it’s read as an affront to the authority of the adults, and they are immediately removed from the learning place.”

On how most girls at risk of being pushed out have been victims of other types of exploitation before being exploited at school.

“A lot of these girls are dealing with sexual victimization and violence, physical victimization and exposure to violence, but their exposures to these structures of oppression are not acknowledged as trauma. They’re just seen as bad, sassy girls. It’s really important for us to understand the role that the community plays in maintaining the safety of girls so that they can learn, but also the ways in which schools themselves can be better responsive to the needs of girls as opposed to really just seeing them as out of order.”

On how to help girls who may be unclear of how to handle their exploitation or negative experience in school.

“It’s really important to make sure that we don’t blame the victim. Don’t only have conversations about what’s going on with the girls, and modifying their behaviors without talking about structures of the school. In terms of the girls, I think it’s really important to have broader conversations out in community, and in-home, about whether they feel safe in school.”

“Many of these girls do not have mentors, or have other adults available to them, particularly those who are most at risk of school push out. Really understanding how to be that consistent adult voice, and establish that relationship with the young girl who is important, especially if there is also a need to be that liaison between the school, and the girl in crisis.”

On how the community can better hold schools accountable for ensuring these girls’ negative experiences don't go overlooked and work to end them.

“It’s important for individuals who are part of the community to challenge their schools to really think about centering the conditions of black girls, and begin by asking the questions about whether they should then impact it, and if so, how, by policies that, on their face, might be race or gender-neutral. To really explore and collect data on who is being disproportionately impacted by suspensions and expulsions? What are some of the decision-making processes that are there? How they can be a part of a community that is starting a conversation about keeping our girls safe, and keeping them out of trouble.”

On how everyone can help to enable girls that may be facing these issues.

“One of the things that I like to say that I think is really important is, our girls should understand, in every space that they are sacred, and that they are loved by us. If we know that education is a critical protective factor against contact with the juvenile legal system, we should be doing everything we can to keep them in schools -- not finding creative ways to turn them away from schools. Again, this is about centering their well-being, and showing them that they are loved. This is something that I firmly believe we can do.”

Listen to the full interview from Another View with Barbara Hamm Lee

 

 

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