Gender Disparities in School Suspensions and Expulsions

The Office for Civil Rights of the U.S. Department of Education recently released new data on school discipline. Receiving a great deal of press attention was the fact that Black and Hispanic students were suspended or expelled at rates far higher than for White students.

But the report also showed a huge gender gap in the discipline handed out at schools. About 51 percent of the students in the 72,000 schools that made up the Department of Education’s database, were female. But 64 percent of all students who were suspended were males. Some 69 percent of all students suspended from school more than once were male as were 74 percent of all students expelled from school.

Black females were three times as likely to be suspended as White females and Black males were three times as likely to be suspended as White males. Black females were more likely to be suspended than White or Hispanic males.