Minnesota’s immigrant population — people born outside the United States — is only about 7.5 percent of Minnesota’s population. Nationwide, immigrants make up 13.9 percent of the population, so Minnesota is below average. The number of immigrants is growing, according to a September report from Pew Research Center, which projects an increase to 17.8 percent of the national population by 2065. That would be even higher than the historic high point of 15 percent immigrant population in the early 20th century. Continue reading
Changing face of immigration, nationally and in Minnesota
Filed under immigration
Overworked and underfunded immigration court system can’t do the job
Fotolia image
Almost half a million immigration cases wait to be heard in immigration courts. The number of pending cases has doubled in six years and keeps growing. Overburdened judges handle about 1,400 cases each year, far more than any other administrative judges. In each case a person, a family, a mother or father or sister or brother, waits for a day in court. Continue reading
Filed under children, immigration
Deportation numbers and the latest ruling on the president’s plan
On Monday, November 9, the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals rejected President Obama’s 2014 plan to defer deportation for parents of U.S. citizens and legal residents and for young immigrants brought here as children. The president’s plan would have protected about 5 million of the estimated 11 million immigrants present in the United States without legal status. According to NPR, the Obama administration plans to appeal to the Supreme Court. Continue reading
Filed under immigration
Minnesota’s awful art problem
Father Hennepin at the Falls of St. Anthony – described by Scott Russell in The Circle: “The painting shows Father Hennepin at the falls, renaming it after his patron saint. The term “discovers” is wrong. Hennepin stands in a position of authority, towering over the people sitting below him, when in fact he was a Dakota prisoner at the time. At right, the painting shows a half-naked Dakota woman carrying a heavy pack. Her lack of covering is historically inaccurate and offensive, an apparent effort to show her as uncivilized.”
The Minnesota Capitol features some truly awful art. Whatever the judgment from an aesthetic perspective, several paintings inside the building are awful because they are offensive, racist, and historically inaccurate. They show heroic white “discoverers,” backed by priests and angels, bringing Christianity and “civilization” to Indians in Minnesota. Continue reading
Filed under race
Open hearts for refugee dogs, but not for children
Photo of golden retriever by Franco Vannini, published under Creative Commons license
Last week, the United States admitted 15 Golden Retrievers, fleeing the hard life on the streets of Istanbul. The dogs were welcomed and given new homes in Minnesota, joining more than 60 others who have been admitted this year. More dogs will be coming, as efforts continue to raise money to rescue homeless dogs from Turkish streets. Meanwhile, one year after the United States launched a program for Central American children to apply for refugee status, not one child out of more than five thousand applicants has made it through the lengthy process to safety in the United States. Continue reading
Filed under human rights, immigration
Immigrant hunger strikes focus on for-profit prison abuses
Women at T. Don Hutto Residential Center in Taylor, Texas began another hunger strike at the end of October. Mostly women seeking refugee status, many have been detained for prolonged periods of time in the private, for-profit center run by Corrections Corporation of America. The hunger strike began with 27 women and has grown since then. Continue reading
Filed under immigration, prisons
A dancing cop and the theater of history
See the video on Aaliyah Taylor’s Facdbook page – https://www.facebook.com/aaliyahlovingya/videos/792864037490488
Besides the horrific video of a police officer throwing a 16-year-old girl across the school room, October’s news included the dancing D.C. cop who defused a potentially nasty situation. Continue reading
Filed under race
Marauding turkeys in the news, along with turtles, camels and reindeer
St. Paul turkey on St. Anthony Avenue
This week’s news is going to the dogs — and the turkeys, turtles, camels, reindeer, donkeys and sheep. Continue reading
Filed under Uncategorized
The not-so-hidden racism of school discipline in Minneapolis and St. Paul
Total number of disciplinary incidents, including suspensions and expulsions, reported by Minneapolis and St. Paul school districts over the past five years
Last week’s news included the horrific video of a police officer throwing a 16-year-old girl across the school room — apparently because she only put away her cell phone, but refused to give it to her teacher. Bad as it is, the video shows only the tip of the iceberg of racially disparate school discipline, which persists across the country and here in the Twin Cities as well.
Vox compiled a series of seven charts showing racism in school discipline, using national statistics. I wondered how Minneapolis and St. Paul would compare, so I went to the Minnesota Department of Education website to find the numbers.
Vox reports that black students are suspended or expelled at higher rates throughout their school years, across the nation. That’s also true in Minneapolis and St. Paul. African American students are disciplined at a far higher rate than any other race or ethnicity reported. Here are the breakdowns for Minneapolis and St. Paul:
The Minnesota Department of Education figures show the total number of “disciplinary incidents” by race and ethnicity. These include suspensions, expulsions and other reported incidents.
In Minneapolis, black students make up 37 percent of the student population, but 75 percent of the disciplinary incidents. In St. Paul, black students make up 30 percent of the student population, but 73 percent of the disciplinary incidents. In Minneapolis, Native American students make up 4 percent of the student population, and 8 percent of the disciplinary incidents.
The U.S. Department of Education Office for Civil Rights reported last year on racial and other disparities in school discipline. They found disproportionately high suspension/expulsion rates for students of color, disproportionate discipline for girls of color, disproportionate suspension of students with disabilities, and disproportionate arrests and referrals to law enforcement by race and disability status.
Racial disparities in discipline begin early and continue throughout school years. The disparities are not explained by differences in behavior. Vox explains:
“A common reaction to the discipline disparities is to suggest that something other than race is at work — that they’re a function of poverty, or that black students are simply more likely to misbehave. But analyses of the data have found that isn’t true. Black students and white students are sent to the principal’s office at similar rates; states report they commit more serious offenses, such as carrying weapons or drugs at school, at similar rates; and when surveyed about their own behavior, they report similar patterns. Even in cases in which black students do disproportionately act out — a 2008 analysis found twice as many black boys as white boys reported bringing a gun to school — they’re more likely to be punished than white students who committed the same infraction.”
Part of the problem is in the presence of police in the schools as School Resource Officers. Writing in the Hechinger Report, Beth Hawkins said that “even controlling for socioeconomic status, students at schools where there is an SRO are at least five times more likely than their peers to be arrested and sent into the juvenile justice system by the officers.”
Overuse of punishment to respond to discipline problems also may be correlated to the lack of counseling resources. Minnesota has one counselor for every 792 students, the third-worst ratio in the entire country.
Failure to educate students also contributes to racial disparities in discipline. Dropout Nation blogger Rishawn Biddle, writing about Minneapolis racial disparities in discipline last year, identified both a cause and a solution:
“[The] district is dealing miserably with the underlying illiteracy that is the key culprit for student misbehavior. … This means intensive reading remediation, especially in the early grades when discipline issues can be headed off … Systemic reform, in short, is key to reducing overuse of suspensions for the long haul.”
In a press release from ISAIAH last year, Professor Nekima Levy-Pounds said the statistics on racially disparate suspensions “should break our hearts, and compel us all – especially the faith community – to act in a transformative way.” It’s time, and long past time, to act.
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Want to learn more?
- The hidden racism of school discipline – data for charts above
- U.S. Department of Education Office of Civil Rights report (2014)
- Minnesota Department of Education Data Center
- Discrimination drives discipline in schools — and it’s time to stop (News Day, 1/12/2014)
- Out of school, and out of luck (News Day, 4/13/2013)
Change must come to St. Paul schools
Steve Marchese and Zuki Ellis are two of the Caucus for Change candidates for St. Paul’s school board.
St. Paul Public Schools (SPPS) will have at least three and possibly four new members after the November 2 election. So who are you voting for? And will that make a change? Continue reading
Filed under education, St. Paul Notes
Mary Turck