TOW #15: "The Civil Rights of Children" by The New York Times Editorial Board

While humorous, this cartoon makes a valid point: public schools are becoming
increasing strict about topics such as violence and drugs and alcohol, even to
the point of punishing students when they do nothing more than
allude to those things.

Nowadays it is not out of the ordinary to hear news stories about school officials crossing the line: punishing students, even young ones, for making gun shapes with their fingers or saying things like, "I'm going to kill you", obviously without meaning it. Sometimes the punishments are as harsh as suspending or expelling students, calling the police, or even arresting students. There has been some backlash, and it has been featured in the article "The Civil Rights of Children", which argues that not only that the constitutional rights of students are violated when "zero-tolerance policies" are enforced, but that those students usually belong to racial minority groups.
In the third paragraph of the article, the Editorial Board name-drops the entire United States government. They state, "Over the last several years, civil rights officials in the Obama administration have begun to focus on this problem, increasing civil rights investigations and forcing school districts to revise disciplinary policies that disproportionately affect minorities." Mentioning the fact that the President of the United States and those who work with him are concerned about the effect of zero-tolerance policies on minorities will cause readers to believe that the matter is much more pressing; after all, it is the job of the President and his administration to tackle tough issues. As the article is meant to convince readers that minority students are much more affected by zero-tolerance policies than non-minority students, mentioning that the federal government is concerned is an excellent tactic.
For the first several paragraphs, the article only says that students who belong to a minority group are "disproportionally" subjected to punishments because of zero-tolerance policies, without giving any real data. However, about halfway through, the Editorial Board writes, "African-American students represent only 15 percent of public school students, but they make of [sic] 35 percent of students suspended once, 44 percent of those suspended more than once, and 36 percent of those expelled... research has shown that black students do not engage in more serious or more frequent misbehavior than other students." Later the article provides statistics about the unfair treatment of disabled students. Statistics and other forms of data are much more convincing than anecdotal evidence, as they are more concrete and are gathered in a more scientific manner. As the statistics featured in the article show the disparity between the percentage of African-American students in public schools and the racial breakdown of students being severely punished, they help prove that students of color are punished harsher and more often than white students thanks to zero-tolerance policies.
With the combined effects of the ethos of the Obama administration and the use of statistics, it seems that any reader would recognize that minority students receive harsher punishments than non-minority students and that public schools are becoming too harsh when it comes to disciplinary infractions.

Link: http://www.nytimes.com/2014/01/12/opinion/sunday/the-civil-rights-of-children.html?ref=editorials