American Civil Liberties Union

The case of Zachery Christie, the 6-year-old from Delaware who was suspended from school for bringing a camping utensil to lunch, is now a familiar story. Initially, his punishment was 45 days in an alternative school. Fortunately for Christie, the school board amended its policies to readmit him following a brief suspension. Many students are not as fortunate, and disciplinary infractions can result in removal from school, or even criminal charges. In too many cases, this marks the student's entry into the school-to-prison pipeline, which are the policies and practices through which many school children, disproportionately represented by minority students and students with special needs, are pushed out of school and into the juvenile and criminal justice system.

On August 15, 2008, Richard Wade, a 12-year-old honor student at Southaven Middle School, made the simple mistake of taking his cell phone with him to school. He had no idea that on that day, school officials would seize his phone, search its contents and conclude without substantiation that the private photos he had saved on the cell phone — most of which simply showed him dancing at home — were "gang-related messages." Nor did Richard foresee that the DeSoto County Board of Education would expel him from school for carrying these photos on his cell phone.