How Corporal Punishment in Southern Schools Fuels Educational Inequality and Legislative Harm

One thing is clear. Data shows that corporal punishment in Southern schools is pervasive. In the 2017-2018 school year, alone, Scott County School District in Mississippi had 1,746 incidents of corporal punishment. More than a third of the students in this district are Black. 

What’s more uncanny is that these incidents aren’t just isolated to Mississippi. There are more than a dozen states that still actively practice corporal punishment in schools. And the practice has been deemed constitutional since the late 1970s. 

What happens when we allow educators to put their hands on our children? What do these kids grow up to achieve?

The short answer: we aren’t completely sure. Yet. 

So why is this practice allowed to persist in our public and private schools, despite it being banned in school districts in most northern states? 

Discipline that incorporates corporal punishment in K-12 schools contributes to educational disparities, primarily in the South. These disparities make it easier for legislators to advocate for a legislature that provides private school vouchers and contributes to other disparity-inducing actions. 

A Brief History 

Corporal Punishment has been deemed constitutional for use in US public schools since 1977, and is currently legal in 17 states and actively practiced in 14. The case, Ingrahm v Wright, involved two students paddled by his Florida junior high school principal. One student was paddled to the point of suffering a hematoma and the other suffered temporary loss of the use of his arm.

After Ingraham, teachers were deemed to be “loco parentis” or “in place of the parent” while children are at school, thus giving them the right to use physical force to discipline a child that is not theirs. 

The language used in respective state statutes on corporal punishment in some of these states differs, but is loosely defined as being “reasonable” or “not excessive,” to meet the standards of constitutionality. Some states have differing respective laws about the use of corporal punishment in public versus private schools, while others, like Louisiana and Oklahoma, only ban corporal punishment for students with disabilities.

Bruising is legally, constitutionally defined as a “consequence” of corporal punishment in schools. In other settings, it can be classified as child abuse. 

Following the U.N. Convention on the Rights of the Child in 1990, many countries began banning corporal punishment. Another wave of bans followed suit in 2016. Russia, China, Mexico, Canada, and Brazil have all banned corporal punishment. Three of the five permanent members of the U.N. security council, France, the United Kingdom and the US, still have the practice legalized. 

Targeting those Who Are Different 

Culturally, geographically, and historically Black and brown regions in the South may be more likely to use corporal punishment in schools. A lack of accountability also makes for a lack of transparency on reporting incidents of corporal punishment. In Holmes County Mississippi, the failure to properly track or monitor corporal punishment incidents led to its abolishment in 2018. 

School discipline policies are often inequitable for differently abled students, students of color, and students from underserved communities. This makes it an educational barrier, as students of color and differently-abled students are often targeted for behaviors  that lead to disciplinary action. Some of these behaviors may include truancy, tardiness, “willful defiance,” and dress and hair code violations. 

What Happens When You Don’t “Spare the Rod”?

There is little contemporary research surrounding corporal punishment in schools from this decade, as most studies on the subject are from the previous decades and involve children from outside of the United States. 

This is because schools are one of the last places where corporal punishment is still allowed or encouraged as a form of discipline. [Bitensky SH. Corporal punishment of children: A human rights violation. Ardsley, NY: Transnational Publishers; 2006]

Moreover, there is little data to support what specific effects corporal punishment in schools has on children, as only a handful of studies are able to show clear developmental outcomes from this form of discipline in a school environment versus coming from a parent or guardian figure.

States that continue to allow corporal punishment have a greater percentage of children in the general population, higher rates of child poverty and child mortality, lower college graduation rates, and lower per-pupil education expenditures than states that have banned school corporal punishment. 

State-authorized physical discipline, including corporal punishment, among other measures, exacerbates these inequities. 

Putting the Paddle Down

Until more research is conducted about the specific and lasting effects of corporal punishment in schools, the true effects of this injustice cannot be measured in earnest. There isn’t a large enough push for the divulging of facts that would disrupt this inequity, likely due to its violent and controversial subject matter. 

As the subject of corporal punishment in schools turns to protecting the rights of children, there is a study that provides a bit of insight to solving the issue.

Researchers at SUNY found that the U.N. 1990 convention did not completely stop the practice from occurring. What the 2019 study of over 190 countries found was that countries of English legal origin or with low levels of female political empowerment lag behind their peer countries when it comes to taking action against corporal punishment. 

To examine the issue of corporal punishment in schools, the US must first take a close look at its highest levels of leadership. Moreover, the SUNY researchers found religious, legal, and social factors to also determine the eventual legality of the practice of corporal punishment in these nations- suggesting it is an intersectional issue, rather than a cut-and-dry matter. 

This implies the need to examine the sociocultural aspects of communities that may encourage or discourage school corporal punishment, as the issue is larger than the classroom and the legislature. 

Decades of school corporal punishment have allowed for over 1,000 students in Scott County to be victims of what the U.N. classifies as child abuse. Conversely, only decades of deprogramming will allow the legality of the discipline to change.