Statement from U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan on School Discipline and Civil Rights

At a press conference today in Memphis, Tennessee, U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan made the following statement about the classroom arrest at Richland County's Spring Valley High School in South Carolina:

"Before I take your questions, I want to do a quick statement about an important conversation that's happening across America right now. This city was the site of so many important moments in the struggle for civil rights. But this week, we've been forced to again confront how far we still have left to go in the struggle for true equality. There's an important discussion taking place in America this week about school discipline, and the role of law enforcement in our schools, and the well-being of our nation's children. Our partners at the Department of Justice have opened an investigation into what happened recently in South Carolina, so I'm not going to be able to comment on the specifics there.

"But I do want to talk about what happens in schools across America every single day, even when it's not captured on video. Schools must be safe havens. They must be filled with compassion and love. But it's clear that as a nation, we are severely underestimating the traumatic impact of our children being subject to, or even just seeing or witnessing, unnecessary physical force and arrests in our schools and classrooms. If we want to maintain the trust of parents and communities in our schools, we must start by treating our children with respect and human dignity.

"As I've said repeatedly, every year, every single year, our K-12 schools suspend roughly three and a half million students, and refer a quarter of a million children to the police for arrest. If our collective goal is to end the school-to-prison pipeline, that is simply unacceptable. These aren't just somehow numbers, or statistics, they're our children. And it should come as no surprise that these children being suspended and arrested are disproportionately students of color and students with disabilities. We can no longer have this conversation, let alone fix the problem, if we're unwilling to talk about race.

"Schools must be productive places for teaching and learning, but we also have to rethink how we create safe and supportive learning environments for all of our students, and for the adults in school, and the staff. Our schools must be a pathway to opportunity, not a pipeline to prison. And no student should feel unsafe or fearful of being harmed while in school, in class.

"To do better, we also have to take a hard look at ourselves, and our history, and the implicit biases that we all carry. The ugly truth – the harsh reality – is that still today in 2015, some children are far more likely to face harsh discipline than others, simply because of their zip code or the color of their skin. That's unacceptable and not a reality anybody should be willing to live with."

Featured

  • University of Kentucky Sees Positive Results from Energy Efficiency Program

    The University of Kentucky in Lexington, Ky., recently announced the results of its Energy Program in Facilities Management, put into place eight years ago, according to a news release. Between the fiscal years of 2017 and 2025, the university’s campus grew by 13.6% while the energy use per square foot dropped by 19.2%.

  • Key Considerations for Office-to-Higher-Education Facility Conversions

    Since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, office-to-alternative-use conversions have become a recurring subject of urban development discourse. Office utilization rates across major U.S. cities remain below 50%, with vacancy rates exceeding 27% in San Francisco and 16% in New York. Higher education facilities present programmatic and spatial use cases that align readily with the typical characteristics of commercial office buildings.

  • Three U.S. Universities Install Acre Security Access Control Platform

    Cloud-native physical and digital security solutions company Acre Security recently announced that it has deployed its access control platform at three major universities in the U.S., according to a news release. Acre partnered with Atrium Campus to provide coverage for more than 69,000 students at the University of Virginia (UVA), George Mason University, and Rockhurst University.

  • Zurn Releases New Ductile Iron Frame Trench Drain System

    Zurn Elkay Water Solutions recently released the newest addition to its Train Drench portfolio, the Ductile Iron Frame Trench Drain System, according to a news release. The product is designed for heavy-duty applications like airports, military, universities, and more.

Digital Edition