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This paper interrogates exclusionary discipline as a carceral practice for Black girls disproportionately exposed to adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) in Tennessee. Using 2017–2018 data from the Office for Civil Rights and the National Survey of Children’s Health, we describe girls’ risk for suspensions, access to school support staff, and girls’ exposure to nine types of ACEs. Findings show Black girls in Tennessee had 4.22 times the risk of receiving a single out-of-school suspension and had 2.28 times the risk of being arrested compared to all other girls. Black girls in TN also had a higher risk for six out of nine ACEs, with a statistically significant ACE of parental divorce. We posit that the disproportional discipline and ACEs that Black girls experience are rooted in structural inequities that undergird the abuse-to-prison pipeline. We suggest that eradicating the adversity-to-prison pipeline requires schools to view ACEs as systemic harm, not personal deficits, and adopt intersectional, healing-focused reforms led by school social workers.
Joseph-McCatty et al. (Fri,) studied this question.