‘Education Suspended’

The 2014-15 school year reconfirmed a bleak truth: Zero-tolerance disciplinary policies continue to have negative consequences for students in K-12 public schools. Two such consequences are school pushout, which often funnels students into the juvenile and criminal justice system, and the disproportionate rates of discipline for students of color, students with disabilities and LGBT students. Last week, the Center for Community Alternatives (CCA) put another, lesser-known consequence in the national spotlight: College and university admission offices are often privy to applicants’ high school disciplinary records.

CCA’s report, titled Education Suspended: The Use of High School Disciplinary Records in College Admissions, documents the widespread practice of disclosing applicants’ disciplinary histories. The Common Application (used by over 500 colleges and universities in the United States) poses this question, “Has this student ever been found responsible for a disciplinary violation at any secondary school attended, whether related to academic misconduct or behavioral misconduct, that resulted in probation, suspension, removal, dismissal or expulsion from the institution?” Guidance counselors are asked additional questions about disciplinary records in the Common Application forms they fill out. And individual colleges and universities often seek out information about disciplinary violations via institution-specific documents. [1] 

Education Suspended shows that out of the 408 colleges and universities that completed a CCA survey, 73 percent collect disciplinary violation information, yet only 25 percent have formal policies that explain how the information is used, and only 30 percent have admissions staff trained in how to interpret the violations. [2] Even more alarming: Of all colleges and universities that collect disciplinary information, 89 percent say that the information they collect influences whether they admit an applicant or not. [3]

We could simply fault colleges and universities for seeking out disciplinary information despite myriad reasons to disregard it. There is, for example, no consensus around what constitutes a “disciplinary infraction” or what the sanctions imposed for specific student violations should be. And research shows that zero-tolerance policies often penalize students for minor infractions and developmentally appropriate behavior and disproportionally affect historically marginalized students. But high schools also play a key role in determining whether the disciplinary information requested by colleges and universities is even disclosed. Only 50 percent of high schools surveyed by CCA do not disclose student disciplinary information. [4] The rest do—to varying degrees. So whether a student’s disciplinary record is disclosed to a potential college or university basically ends up being a coin toss, subject to little rhyme or reason—like so many other factors that influence school discipline.

The message CCA communicates via the Education Suspended report is clear: High school disciplinary records have no place in post-secondary admissions. One likely line of questioning of this recommendation is, “What about campus safety? Aren’t there some disciplinary violations that colleges and universities should know about?” But as CCA explains in its report, “… [T]he limited number of studies examining criminal history screening and campus safety found no relationship between the two.” And it’s likely that the same holds true for disciplinary violation screening. [5] CCA goes on to say, “Instead of promoting campus safety, excluding students with past disciplinary records is likely to decrease public safety in society at large by denying opportunities for higher education to otherwise qualified applicants.” [6]

The haphazard use of disciplinary records in post-secondary admissions is cause for alarm. It’s up to high school educators and administrators to advocate for what’s best—and fair—for their students.

Lindberg is a writer and associate editor for Teaching Tolerance.

[1] Education Suspended: The Use of High School Disciplinary Records in College Admissions, pages 1-2

[2] page 9

[3] page 10

[4] page 13

[5] page 24

[6] page 24