No abstract

In 2011, an urban school district that had been cited for excessive and disproportionate suspension by race and disability sought to establish guidelines for Positive Behavioral Interventions and Supports (PBIS) as a remedy. District leaders held a PBIS planning meeting that included a broad collection of stakeholders. As they discussed data-driven protocols, a significant challenge to institutionalized racism embedded in behavioral expectations, analysis, and responses emerged. However, that challenge was met with repeated assertions that the apparently neutral parameters of PBIS would suffice. Thus, PBIS protocols were used to suppress questions of the cultural competence of teachers, administrators, and clinicians.

This case study follows a district racial equity initiative from policy formulation through implementation, and finally to the review of a high school discipline measure. The initiative had a consistent theme of addressing implicit bias. However, over time, district equity champions expanded the definition of implicit bias beyond its conventional meaning of subconscious prejudices and perceptions that may influence action. These champions came to identify policies, practices, and curriculum that presumed and privileged underlying White norms, and were thus implicitly biased. Hence, implicit bias became evident in powerful structural racism across the school system.