School districts all over the nation are having to face the question of why minorities are suspended and expelled in disproportionate numbers. The Applied Research Center (ARC) published a report in March that showed that minorities are disciplined more often and more severely than whites. Twelve school districts in cities from San Francisco to Boston were studied to see if minorities were being disciplined at disproportionate rates. "This data reveals that racial disparities in disciplinary actions are widespread across the country," ARC Senior Research Associate Libero Della Piana said in Chicago Standard. African-Americans were suspended or expelled last year in disproportionate amounts. For example, in San Francisco, African-American students make up 18 percent of the student body, but make up 56 percent of the suspensions and expulsions - over three times more than their proportion of the student population. On the other side of the US, in Providence, R.I., African-Americans make up 23 percent of the student population, but are 39 percent of the suspensions and expulsions. And in the worst case, in Phoenix, Ariz., 21 percent of suspended or expelled students were African-American, although they made up just four percent of the student body. Della Piana said that these finding show that there is definitely a problem with school disciplinary action. "Black kids aren't necessarily more likely to do something than white kids, so when you see suspension rates that are higher, that would indicate there's something wrong going on," Della Piana said in the Bakersfield Californian. Latinos are also overrepresented in suspensions and expulsions. In a Salem, Ore. school district, Latinos make up 10 percent of the student body but 22 percent of the suspensions and expulsions. Austin, Texas, has a similar problem: 43 percent of the students are Latino, but 45 percent of the suspended and expelled students are Latino. Lodi Unified is no different than the rest of the United States. Suspension statistics were not available because K-6 suspensions were not tallied by race, but expulsions statistics showed that last year, African-Americans made up almost 20 percent of expulsions although they composed only six percent of Lodi Unified. Asians made up a third of all expulsions, although they were only 20 percent of the school district. Suspension and expulsion statistics for Bear Creek's 1998-99 school year were unavailable; however, the trend is apparent in the 1997-98 school year's data. African-Americans, Asians and Hispanics are disproportionately suspended and expelled. African-Americans make up nearly 11 percent of Bear Creek's student population, but nearly 21 percent of suspended or expelled students are African-American. Asians are about 32 percent of Bear Creek's population, but make up almost 40 percent of suspensions or expulsions. A little over 13 percent of Bear Creek students are Hispanic, but over 15 percent of suspended or expelled students are Hispanic. "Our statistics mirror other districts," Interim Principal Dave Hurley said. "This is a statewide and nationwide concern. We admit it's a problem, but we're looking for solutions." Zero-tolerance policies, according to the ARC report, can be blamed as part of the problem. The report cites an incident in Olivet, Mich., where two white students were caught with a gun in their car. The students said they had the gun because it was hunting season. Although Michigan has a zero-tolerance policy, those two students were only suspended for 10 days and had to complete 40 hours of community service. But in another Michigan school district, an African-American student was expelled for cleaning his fingernails with a pocketknife that he willingly gave up when requested to do so. Why the discrepancy? Was race a factor? The authors of the ARC report say it could be. "Evidence suggests that schools are more willing to recognize mitigating circumstances when they perceive the student involved in an incident as having 'a real future' that would be destroyed by expulsion," the report states. "In disproportionate numbers, it is African-American and Latino students whose futures are wrecked by zero-tolerance policies." Those policies are not the only reasons why minorities are disciplined more. ARC believes that teachers who do not receive diversity or race relations training are also part of the problem. Teachers are not required to go through cross-cultural language and academic development training. "I think it's certainly the lack of knowledge of teachers' and administrators' understanding of African-American students," Stockton NAACP official Mamie Darlington said in The Record. "They buy into a lot of stereotypes." Stereotypes may influence administrators and teachers to believe that a student is causing a bigger problem than he really is. With subjective terms such as "defiance of authority" or "disrespect," stereotypes and racial ignorance may cause more students to be disciplined. Two students from Hubbard High School in Chicago were suspended for six days when their break dancing moves were mistaken for "gang representation." Such misunderstandings could be eliminated if teachers had diversity training. Hurley said that the majority of fights and other problems occur within the races, and not between them. Statistics from Conflict Mediation show that only five out of 110 cases first semester involved racial slurs. "We generally don't tend to have a problem with race relations at our school," Conflict Mediation adviser Lori Laughlin said. Thirty-eight percent of Conflict Mediation cases involved African-Americans - another example of disproportion at Bear Creek. "That number has traditionally been high," Laughlin said, "but I don't want to know why. The implications that can be made might not necessarily be true if we analyze that."