PLACE, POWER, AND SCHOOL PUSHOUT: DEFENSIVE LOCALISM AND SCHOOL DISCIPLINE

Suspensions, expulsions, and school-based arrests: These exclusionary and overly punitive disciplinary responses disproportionately impact Black students and have become normalized throughout the nation. In reality, school pushout, or the disciplinary sanction of removing students from the classroom, contravenes the very purpose of public education to prepare children to engage as full citizens in our democratic republic.

This Article attributes school pushout to harmful exercises of local authority over education, an authority given constitutional cover under the democratic ideology of localism and decentralized governance. Many communities, however, exercise local power to exclude and hoard resources to the detriment of neighboring communities.

This Article examines how many majority-Black districts deprived of the benefits of “classic localism” exert parochial power to control their educational communities, often resorting to overly punitive disciplinary responses. This Article applies the concept of defensive localism to describe this destructive exercise of local power, which imposes citizenship harms on impacted students. Like their wealthier, white neighbors, these school communities are not immune to the impulse to exclude.

Meanwhile, the carefully curated “community” in wealthy, white suburban enclaves often incentivizes reliance on ineffective school discipline interventions and a false sense of safety, obscuring signs of potential school violence. Black children suffer a range of citizenship harms resulting from exclusionary discipline, including increased likelihood of involvement with the criminal legal system.

This Article urges communities to reimagine school discipline to not alienate or exclude students, but embrace them by providing needed services and supports that foster genuine community and participation.

The full text of this Article can be found by clicking the PDF link to the left.

* Associate Professor of Law and Founding Director, Racial Equity in Education Law and Policy Clinic, Georgetown Law. Thanks to participants of the Lutie A. Lytle Black Women Law Faculty Workshop and Writing Retreat at Duke Law, the Culp Colloquium, the Mid-Atlantic Clinical Writers Workshop, the Clinical Law Review Writers’ Workshop at NYU Law, and the Georgetown Law Junior Faculty Workshop for the helpful feedback on this Article. Thanks also to professors LaToya Baldwin Clark, Dorothy A. Brown, Sara Colangelo, Barbara Fedders, Eduardo Ferrer, Miranda Johnson, Karla McKanders, Eloise Pasachoff, Dave Rapallo, Daria Roithmayr, and Erika K. Wilson for insightful feedback and encouragement on earlier drafts of this Article. Thanks to TLG for strength and encouragement during the writing process. Thanks to Karen Enomoto for her research assistance.

“[I]f a society permits one portion of its citizenry to be menaced or destroyed, then, very soon, no one in that society is safe.”
— James Baldwin. 1 James Baldwin, Nothing Personal 26 (Beacon Press 2021) (1964).

INTRODUCTION

Black children are disproportionately and negatively impacted by exclusionary and overly punitive school discipline practices that result in their removal from the classroom, a phenomenon known as school pushout. 2 Exclusionary discipline occurs when students are removed from the classroom, either temporarily, in the case of suspension, or permanently, in the case of expulsion. See Susanna K. Jain, Nathaniel Beers & Ryan Padrez, Am. Acad. of Pediatrics, School Suspension and Expulsion: Policy Statement, Pediatrics, Oct. 2024, at 1, 1. Exclusionary discipline is one of the more severe forms of disciplinary responses that schools can institute. See id. School pushout is the latest in a centuries-old endeavor to maintain racial hierarchy through American public education. Cara McClellan, Challenging Legacy Discrimination: The Persistence of School Pushout as Racial Subordination, 105 B.U. L. Rev. 641, 699 (2025). Another way of pushing a student out of school is through disenrollment, which occurs when administrators strike a student from the enrollment rolls. See Tonja Jacobi & Riley Clafton, The Law of Disposable Children: Discipline in Schools, 2023 U. Ill. L. Rev. 1123, 1156–57. For example, recent national data show that Black children comprised 37% of all children suspended during the 2017 to 2018 academic year (the most recent available national data), despite representing just 15% of the 2.5 million students enrolled in public schools. 3 See Lora Henderson Smith, Jessika H. Bottiani, Joseph M. Kush & Catherine P. Bradshaw, The Discipline Gap in Context: The Role of School Racial and Ethnic Diversity and Within School Positionality on Out-of-School Suspensions, 98 J. Sch. Psych. 61, 61 (2023). Reviews of data have found that Black students are subjected to more frequent punishment for subjective 4 See Jason P. Nance & Michael Heise, Law Enforcement Officers, Students, and the School-to-Prison Pipeline: A Longitudinal Perspective, 54 Ariz. St. L.J. 527, 552 (2022) (finding that racial bias influences educators’ decisions related to subjective discipline categories, such as “disrespect” or “defiance”). and low-level infractions, more likely to receive harsher punishment for the same infractions as their white peers, 5 Race has been a consistent factor when Black students receive harsh punishment, even when compared to students of other races “who have the same disciplinary records or who committed the same infraction.” Harold Jordan, Why School Discipline Reform Still Matters, ACLU (Oct. 19, 2023), https://www.aclu.org/news/racial-justice/why-school-discipline-reform-still-matters [https://perma.cc/ZCD3-BB6X]. more likely to be subjected to exclusionary interventions, 6 This is compared to white students who commit the same infractions. Id. “By age 9, about 40% of Black boys and 15% of Black girls who live in urban areas have already been suspended or expelled at least once.” See Jain et al., supra note 2, at 2. But expulsion data do not capture the informal ways that students are pushed out of school, including by being encouraged to transfer to other schools. See Jacobi & Clafton, supra note 2, at 1128. and more likely to have the police called on them. 7 Data also show that administrators are more likely to report incorrect data that understates the impact of discriminatory discipline on Black students and that administrators are unable to provide explanations for such disparate treatment. See Jordan, supra note 5. These disciplinary responses begin early in Black children’s educational trajectories, with one study of early childhood educators concluding that they expected Black students to misbehave. 8 See Benjamin W. Fisher, Ethan M. Higgins, Aaron Kupchik, Samantha Viano, F. Chris Curran, Suzanne Overstreet, Bryant Plumlee & Brandon Coffey, Protecting the Flock or Policing the Sheep?: Differences in School Resource Officers’ Perceptions of Threats by School Racial Composition, 69 Soc. Probs. 316, 319 (2022) (citing Walter S. Gilliam, Angela N. Maupin, Chin R. Reyes, Maria Accavitti & Frederick Shic, Yale Child Study Ctr., Do Early Educators’ Implicit Biases Regarding Sex and Race Relate to Behavior Expectations and Recommendations of Preschool Expulsions and Suspensions? (2016), https://marylandfamiliesengage.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/07/Preschool-Implicit-Bias-Policy-Brief.pdf [https://perma.cc/R6DJ-ZZ3F]). Consistent with this finding, national data show that Black preschoolers are 2.5 times more likely to receive one or more suspensions than their share of the total preschool population. 9 Off. for C.R., U.S. Dep’t of Educ., Discipline Practices in Preschool: 2017–18 Civil Rights Data Collection (CRDC) (2021), https://civilrightsdata.ed.gov/assets/downloads/crdc-DOE-Discipline-Practices-in-Preschool-part1.pdf [https://perma.cc/2T6J-3HAS]. In addition, Black preschool girls comprised 8.6% of the total preschool enrollment but received 9.1% of one or more out-of-school suspensions. Id. Black preschoolers were expelled at two times their share of the total preschool population. 10 See id. And disparities compound over time, with one study noting that some teachers who stereotype Black children as troublemakers respond to their misbehavior more harshly. Jason A. Okonofua & Jennifer L. Eberhardt, Two Strikes: Race and the Disciplining of Young Students, 26 Psych. Sci. 617, 618 (2015). Thus, the expectation of misbehavior can feed future misbehavior, becoming a kind of self-fulfilling prophecy, contributing to a cycle of discipline infractions. Id. Despite research showing that Black children do not misbehave at higher rates than their white peers, Black children are punished more frequently and more severely (often for minor, nonviolent offenses). 11 Black children are suspended and arrested at higher rates than white children, despite empirical research showing that Black children do not misbehave at higher rates. See Barbara A. Fedders, The End of School Policing, 109 Calif. L. Rev. 1443, 1489 (2021); see also Russell J. Skiba, Robert H. Horner, Choong-Geun Chung, M. Karega Rausch, Seth L. May & Tary Tobin, Race Is Not Neutral: A National Investigation of African American and Latino Disproportionality in School Discipline, 40 Sch. Psych. Rev. 85, 87 (2011).

These exclusionary practices are especially pervasive in majority-Black schools. Data show that many majority-Black districts employ what is termed “hard discipline,” 12 Scholar Jason Nance refers to such disciplinary approaches as “strict security measures,” which he defines as including metal detectors, random sweeps for contraband, surveillance cameras, and the hiring of police or guards who surveil students. Jason P. Nance, Students, Security, and Race, 63 Emory L.J. 1, 5 (2013). or the use of carceral-like disciplinary measures, which includes the widespread use of metal detectors, random sweeps for contraband, employment of School Resource Officers (SROs), 13 “SROs are a common form of school-based policing in which sworn officers with arrest power are assigned to a school . . . and typically are not trained as educators. Although some work for school district police departments . . . others report to local law enforcement agencies and are . . . not school district employees.” F. Chris Curran, Benjamin W. Fisher, Samantha Viano & Aaron Kupchik, Why and When Do School Resource Officers Engage in School Discipline? The Role of Context in Shaping Disciplinary Involvement, 126 Am. J. Educ. 33, 35 (2019) (citation omitted). controlled access to school grounds, and security cameras. 14 See Nance, supra note 12, at 5; see also LaToya Baldwin Clark, Barbed Wire Fences: The Structural Violence of Education Law, 89 U. Chi. L. Rev. 499, 509–10 (2022) (noting that many Black children growing up in segregated communities attend segregated schools that leave them “intergenerationally ‘stuck in place,’” marginalized as children and later as adults (quoting Patrick Sharkey, Stuck in Place: Urban Neighborhoods and the End of Progress Toward Racial Equality (2013))). Specifically, studies find that schools with larger proportions of students of color are more prone to rely on exclusionary school discipline and security policies. 15 Fisher et al., supra note 8, at 319. And research indicates that punitive discipline is more severe in segregated schools that primarily serve Black and Latinx students. See McClellan, supra note 2, at 687. One study found that more Black students within a school correlated with increased discipline and suspension rates as well as decreased use of restorative practices. 16 Odis Johnson Jr., Jason Jabbari, Maya Williams & Olivia Marcucci, Disparate Impacts: Balancing the Need for Safe Schools With Racial Equity in Discipline, 6 Pol’y Insights From Behav. & Brain Scis. 162, 165 (2019). The kinds of offenses that students are sanctioned for are also notable as they tend to be subjective, low-level offenses that often do not mirror the level of sanction imposed. 17 According to one study, 55% of out-of-school suspensions and 72% of in-school suspensions issued in Washington, D.C., schools in 2018 and 2019 were for nonviolent incidents. Melanie Leung-Gagné, Jennifer McCombs, Caitlin Scott & Daniel J. Losen, Learning Pol’y Inst., Pushed Out: Trends and Disparities in Out-of-School Suspension 21 (2022), https://learningpolicyinstitute.org/media/3885/download?inline&file=CRDC_School_Suspension_REPORT.pdf [https://perma.cc/6VE8-5S3U].

Students impacted by these punitive and exclusionary discipline practices suffer a range of “citizenship harms” 18 Professor Robin Lenhardt describes these “citizenship harms” as those that occur when a policy or action marks a group or person as inferior to white people, who are considered the norm against whom others are measured. These citizenship harms prevent individuals who are marked as racially different from fully participating in society. See R.A. Lenhardt, Understanding the Mark: Race, Stigma, and Equality in Context, 79 N.Y.U. L. Rev. 803, 844 (2004). School discipline creates “uniquely racial harm” for nonwhite students by pushing them into the school-to-prison pipeline and inflicting citizenship harms, including economic and psychological injuries. See David Simson, Exclusion, Punishment, Racism and Our Schools: A Critical Race Theory Perspective on School Discipline, 61 UCLA L. Rev. 506, 519 (2014). that jeopardize their educational futures. These citizenship harms include decreased likelihood of graduating from high school, 19 See U.S. Gov’t Accountability Off., GAO-20-455, K–12 Education: Characteristics of School Shootings 10 (2020), https://www.gao.gov/assets/gao-20-455.pdf (on file with the Columbia Law Review) [hereinafter U.S. Gov’t Accountability Off., Characteristics of School Shootings] (“[R]esearch has shown that students who are suspended from school lose important instructional time, are less likely to graduate on time, and are more likely to repeat a grade, drop out of school, and become involved in the juvenile justice system.” (citing U.S. Gov’t Accountability Off., GAO-18-258, K–12 Education: Discipline Disparities for Black Students, Boys, and Students With Disabilities (2018), https://www.gao.gov/assets/700/692095.pdf (on file with the Columbia Law Review))). Furthermore, high rates of discipline disparities among students of color contribute to more exposure to the criminal legal system and decreased likelihood of higher education attendance and completion. See Adai A. Tefera, Genevieve Siegel-Hawley, Ashlee Sjogren & David Naff, Disrupting Disparities in School Discipline, Kappan Online (Mar. 25, 2024), https://kappanonline.org/disrupting-disparities-in-school-discipline [https://perma.cc/UK3M-SMTN]. “In sum, the complex, coinciding, and cumulative impacts of discriminatory policies and court rulings over time have created and sustained educational disparities over decades and diminished educational opportunities for Black students.” Smith et al., supra note 3, at 63 (citation omitted). lost instructional time, stigmatization, and lower grades. 20 See D.C. Police Reform Comm’n, Decentering Police to Improve Public Safety: A Report of the DC Police Reform Commission 68 (2021), https://dccouncil.gov/wp-content/uploads/2021/04/Police-Reform-Commission-Full-Report.pdf
[https://perma.cc/D5EK-V4EC] (“Once arrested, youth as well as their families can face an array of seemingly endless collateral consequences, including: loss of instructional time and course credits, lower grades, legal costs and court fees, separation from family, . . . [and] harmful psychological effects . . . .”). Students subjected to arrest are exposed to early contact with the criminal legal system and are vulnerable to immigration authorities as well as other agencies to which their criminal status may be reported. 21 See id. These harms contravene the aspirations of Brown v. Board of Education, which established that education was foundational to full citizenship. 22 347 U.S. 483, 493 (1954) (“Compulsory school attendance laws . . . demonstrate our recognition of the importance of education to our democratic society. . . . It is the very foundation of good citizenship . . . [and] it is doubtful that any child may reasonably be expected to succeed in life if . . . denied the opportunity of an education.”).

Certainly, racial bias—specifically anti-Black carceral logic—plays a role in the perpetuation of these discipline disparities among Black children. Anti-Black carceral logic is defined as a punitive mindset that centers on control and punishment—including physical control, surveillance, and even violence—in the name of safety. 23 See Christy E. Lopez, Abolish Carceral Logic, 17 Stan. J. C.R. & C.L. 379, 386 (2022). Indeed, Black students are often perceived as threats to school safety and as inherently criminal. 24 Black students are arrested and suspended at higher rates, despite research showing that they do not misbehave at higher rates. See Fedders, supra note 11, at 1488–89; see also Skiba et al., supra note 11, at 1088. As scholar Michael Dumas concludes of anti-Blackness in education policy, “the Black is constructed as always already problem—as nonhuman; inherently uneducable, or at very least, unworthy of education; and, even in a multiracial society, always a threat to what Sexton described as ‘everything else.’” Michael J. Dumas, Against the Dark: Antiblackness in Education Policy and Discourse, 55 Theory Into Prac. 11, 16 (2016) (citation omitted) (quoting Jared Sexton, Amalgamation Schemes: Antiblackness and the Critique of Multiracialism 13 (2008)). Furthermore, educational decisionmakers’ perceptions of Black children translate into negative disciplinary responses to them. 25 See Johnson et al., supra note 16, at 164 (describing how school personnel’s discretion when determining discipline is impacted by the student’s racial background). These assumptions are often unshakeable, regardless of good behavior. 26 Cf. James Forman Jr., Locking Up Our Own: Crime and Punishment in Black America 155 (2017) (“Even proof of innocence is dismissed by a system incapable of questioning the assumptions that led it to mark you as guilty.”). One study reported that school authorities perceive Black students to be more threatening than their white counterparts. 27 Fisher et al., supra note 8, at 331. This bias is evidenced in another study’s findings that Black students received more punitive sanctions than white students did—even when involved in the same fight as their white peers. 28 Nathan Barrett, Andrew McEachin, Jonathan N. Mills & Jon Valant, Disparities and Discrimination in Student Discipline by Race and Family Income, 56 J. Hum. Res. 711, 744–45 (2021) (concluding that, although it is hard to provide conclusive evidence of racial bias, intentional discrimination plays a role in disciplinary responses). But anti-Black carceral logic alone does not account for the prevalence of hard discipline in many majority-Black schools.

This Article locates the exercise of what is termed throughout as “classic localism” as a contributing factor in the shaping of school discipline regimes. Classic localism refers to the theory favoring decentralized and autonomous local governance structures. 29 See Erika K. Wilson, The New School Segregation, 102 Corn. L. Rev. 139, 179 (2016) [hereinafter Wilson, New School Segregation] (“Localism is broadly defined as an ideological preference for decentralized, independent local government structures.”). Classic localism prioritizes the ability of local communities to exercise the absolute right to govern themselves. 30 Id. at 179–80 (“[O]ne of the central tenets of classic localism is that the provision of government services should be subject primarily to the control of local governments . . . .”). For example, a state is considered a centralized governance structure, while a city council is considered a local governing structure. States are responsible for the provision of public education, as a federal right to education is not articulated in the U.S. Constitution. 31 See S.A. Indep. Sch. Dist. v. Rodriguez, 411 U.S. 1, 35 (1973) (“Education, of course, is not among the rights afforded explicit protection under our Federal Constitution. Nor do we find any basis for saying it is implicitly so protected.”). In turn, state legislatures delegate educational decisionmaking power to districts. 32 See Erika K. Wilson, Toward a Theory of Equitable Federated Regionalism in Public Education, 61 UCLA L. Rev. 1416, 1421 n.17 (2014) [hereinafter Wilson, Equitable Federated Regionalism] (“Though the provision of public education is one of the powers reserved to the states under the Tenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, most state legislatures delegate this power to school districts.”). But school districts are shaped by local government decisions, including school siting decisions and the drawing of district boundary lines. 33 Id. at 1421. Courts have provided significant deference to classic localism as described in detail in Part I—essentially opting to not interfere with local education decisions.

In the education context, district boundary lines often define the parameters of local education governance, with most students attending schools in the communities in which they live—with a few exceptions. 34 See id. For example, in Washington, D.C., students can attend schools outside of their local attendance zones (e.g., close to where their families live) by opting into a lottery system known as “My School DC.” 35 See My School DC, https://www.myschooldc.org/ [https://perma.cc/K68R-KRTZ] (last visited Aug. 20, 2025). But district boundaries are not benign accidents of geography, as they are often crafted by local governance structures and tend to perpetuate racial and economic segregation. 36 See Wilson, Equitable Federated Regionalism, supra note 32, at 1418 (noting that district boundary lines are the product of structures that foster residential segregation based on race and class). Indeed, Professor Erika Wilson identifies deference to localism as well as municipal fragmentation, or the existence of multiple local governments within a metropolitan area, as primary contributors to racial and economic segregation. 37 See id. at 1421. This Article uses the term “localities” to refer to the various fragmented local government structures (e.g., municipalities, cities, counties, school boards, zoning commissions, and so on) that shape the provision of public services for a defined local geographic area. It also recognizes that schools as well as districts can be “localities” in the sense that they are loci of educational decisionmaking. These localities’ decisions have significant repercussions for the provision of public education. For example, segregated neighborhoods, resulting from zoning commission decisions, beget segregated school districts. 38 See id. at 1420.

This Article proposes that a significant contributor to reliance on exclusionary discipline in many majority-Black schools and districts is the exercise of “defensive localism”—or parochial power exercised in a destructive manner—by majority-Black schools and districts. As a result of segregative policies, these districts tend to be not only racially segregated but also economically segregated, with high numbers of low-income students. 39 Wilson, New School Segregation, supra note 29, at 187 (observing that when school district boundary lines track municipal boundary lines, school districts in less affluent areas absorb a disproportionate share of poor and minority students). This Article notes how segregated, under-resourced, majority-Black schools and districts are deprived of the benefits of classic localism. 40 This is consistent with Professor Richard Briffault’s conclusion that localism masks the ways that public life has become privatized. See Richard Briffault, Our Localism: Localism and Legal Theory (pt. 2), 90 Colum. L. Rev. 346, 452 (1990) [hereinafter Briffault, Localism II]. “When municipalities feel powerless, a parochial mindset takes over and prompts them to use the limited power they do have to protect their resources from those outside of the municipality.” Wilson, New School Segregation, supra note 29, at 198. This Article argues that districts (and their schools) deprived of the authority and autonomy to exclude ultimately do so through exclusionary discipline practices. Instead, these schools and districts employ defensive localism to exclude.

While no school or district is a monolith, this Article concludes that considerations like resources, political capital (i.e., power), and community (such as neighborhood, society, social group, or place comprised of similarly situated individuals) shape school disciplinary regimes. Many majority-Black, urban school districts tend to be under resourced due to the exercise of what Wilson terms “destructive localism,” which occurs when white suburban districts hoard resources and exclude low-income and Black families to the detriment of neighboring Black school districts, which must take all comers because they cannot exercise the power of exclusion. 41 As Wilson notes, destructive localism occurs when one group is afforded local autonomy and its members enjoy the benefits of classic localism to the detriment of their neighbors. See Wilson, New School Segregation, supra note 29, at 202. Consequently, many majority-Black, urban schools are left in the wake of destructive localism and must absorb those students and families who are not only considered undesirable but also tend to carry more costs due to the effects of living in areas of concentrated poverty. 42 See id. at 187; see also Bruce D. Baker, Learning Pol’y Inst., How Money Matters for Schools 10 (2017), https://learningpolicyinstitute.org/media/384/download?inline&file=How_Money_Matters_REPORT.pdf (on file with the Columbia Law Review) (concluding that as student poverty increases, the costs of achieving any given academic outcome also increase and that these costs can amount to more than double for a district with 100% children from low-income households compared to a low-poverty district with no children from low-income households). Yet these schools also seek to exercise autonomy and authority, however limited, by pushing out students whose behavior is particularly hard or costly to manage.

This Article applies the concept of defensive localism to school discipline to describe the motivations undergirding the prevalence of exclusionary discipline in many majority-Black schools. Other scholars have applied the theory of classic localism to analyze how it perpetuates educational inequities through facially neutral policies, such as municipal secessions, which occur when a territory incorporates itself as a new municipality (detaching itself from one recognized municipality and forming its own) or joins another one. 43 See Wilson, New School Segregation, supra note 29, at 164; see also Christopher Tyler Burks & Peter A. Jones, Understanding the Determinants of School District Secessions, 2 J. Soc. Equity & Pub. Admin., no. 2, 2024, at 81, 81. A common consequence of district secessions is further segregation by race and income, with white and affluent students often separated into suburban school districts. Burks & Peter, supra, at 181; see also Wilson, New School Segregation, supra note 29, at 195–96. Essentially, municipal secessions result when a territory forms new geographic boundary lines that have social, legal, and political meaning. 44 See Wilson, New School Segregation, supra note 29, at 164. Wilson has described how municipal secessions have perpetuated school segregation, such as in Alabama’s Jefferson County School District, from which several predominantly white suburbs seceded despite the district being under a federal school desegregation order. 45 Id. at 166. She cites three main reasons for the allowance of such secessions: (1) permissive Alabama state law allowing school districts to easily leave county-based districts (which are usually larger and centrally governed) to form a new district; (2) lack of resistance from the Jefferson County Board of Education (despite the Board’s power to challenge a secession as violative of the active school desegregation order); and (3) lack of court intervention to prevent such secession. 46 See id. at 166–67 (noting that after originally concluding that municipal secession would violate the active school desegregation order, the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals reversed itself and permitted the creation of new school systems separate from the Jefferson County School District). Driven by local residents and policymakers, the decision to secede was shrouded in the rationale of classic localism, including the desire to have local educational decisionmaking reflect the wishes of local residents, increased efficiency resulting from smaller school district size, and the creation of quality schools that would attract more employers and businesses. 47 See id. at 168. The demographic changes aligned with new municipal boundary lines, however, often reflect the underlying racially segregative motivations of municipal secession—indeed, a national study found that newly created seceded districts often have whiter and more affluent student populations. 48 See Kendra Taylor, Erica Frankenberg & Genevieve Siegel-Hawley, Racial Segregation in the Southern Schools, School Districts, and Counties Where Districts Have Seceded, AERA Open, July–Sep. 2019, at 1, 6–10.

Another example of classic localism can be found in local school funding systems, which tend to perpetuate interlocal inequality by relying on property values. Under such funding systems—because property values are often higher in wealthy, white communities than in poor, Black communities due to discriminatory policies—wealthy, white communicates are able to raise more in funding for education. 49 See Derek W. Black, Localism, Pretext, and the Color of School Dollars, 107 Minn. L. Rev. 1415, 1493 (2023) [hereinafter Black, Color of School Dollars] (concluding that “it is now, ironically, the local district itself—with its sacrosanct borders and funds—that creates barriers and entrenches inequality”). This is the case even when poor, Black communities tax themselves at higher rates and wealthy, white communities tax themselves at lower rates. 50 See id. at 1417–19 (explaining that, while poor districts are unable to generate necessary resources despite “herculean efforts,” wealthier districts are easily able to meet their own needs).

Like municipal secession and school funding laws, school discipline codes are facially race- and class-neutral, yet they perpetuate racial segregation and educational inequality. 51 See Thalia González & Will Martel, Education Equity and Brown: Reform, Retrenchment, and Exclusionary School Discipline, 16 Geo. J.L. & Mod. Critical Race Persps. 11, 18–19 (2024) (arguing that the facial neutrality of discipline codes serves as a “disguise” to “preserve white exclusivity in educational spaces”). Whether consciously or unconsciously, in seeking to take advantage of the “community” principle of classic localism, schools exercise defensive localism through punitive discipline that pushes out undesirable students. 52 This Article acknowledges that majority-Black schools are not monolithic, and many lawmakers have acted in good faith to implement strategies that they believe will benefit students and communities. But discipline has also been weaponized in some schools to the detriment of students, depriving them of educational opportunities. It is important to recognize that many traditional, majority-Black schools succeed in providing nurturing, inclusive, and supportive environments for Black children. This Article seeks to highlight how defensive localism functions in many majority-Black schools to the detriment of students subjected to overly punitive disciplinary practices. Therefore, in analyzing this phenomenon, this Article draws a throughline between place, power exercised through localism, and school pushout.

Part I analyzes how classic localism has been exercised by localities to perpetuate educational exclusion along racial and socioeconomic lines. It identifies the goals and principles of classic localism and details how localities have exploited them to segregate students and hoard educational resources and opportunities. It examines how classic localism has been exercised in many majority-white schools, including through the use of exclusionary discipline practices originating during the era of school desegregation. It also considers how these schools have employed so-called “race-neutral” strategies created through local power to reify larger societal racial divisions.

Part II analyzes disciplinary regimes in majority-white schools that enjoy citizenship benefits—like democratic participation, efficiency, and community—as a result of classic localism exercised by their surrounding communities. 53 This section draws from Briffault’s observations, including his recognition that local autonomy, with its emphasis on “the decentralization of responsibility for the provision of public services and exercise of public power,” has been acknowledged by courts and academic theorists. Briffault, Localism II, supra note 40, at 452. It outlines how these schools also harm students through exclusion by making assumptions about who constitutes “community,” thereby obscuring real dangers that permit school violence to occur.

Part III analyzes how defensive localism manifests in many majority-Black schools through exclusionary school discipline practices. Many majority-Black schools implement punitive practices that shape the makeup of school communities and permit local officials to exert authority and autonomy. This Part also underscores the citizenship harms that such regimes wreak on impacted students.

Part IV explores alternatives to exclusionary school discipline regimes. It begins with a critique of the current federal role in further entrenching exclusionary discipline regimes. This critique is noteworthy because the federal government often sets the tone for state and local action. Furthermore, the current federal Administration is implementing policies that are re-entrenching the citizenship harms that undermine the promise of public education as critical to democratic participation.

To address these harms, Part V of this Article shares some practical considerations and lessons learned from localities that have taken steps to transform their exclusionary discipline regimes. This Article does not propose a one-size-fits-all solution for every school or district with unique circumstances, resources, or students. Instead, the discipline reform efforts outlined in Part V provide some practical insights into the tensions at play and various matters to consider when engaging in efforts to transform exclusionary disciplinary regimes shaped by ineffective exercises of defensive localism.