(Originally posted on Huffington Post.)

As a society, we adhere to the basic premise that, in the proper setting, children will learn what they are taught. And it follows that in learning to become positive and involved adults, children need to be encouraged and supported in their school environments.

We should all be alarmed, then, at some of the lessons we're teaching children in schools today. In this age of metal detectors, police in schools, and overly punitive zero-tolerance policies, our children are learning that any small infraction, even writing on a desk, can subject them to expulsion or possibly even a criminal record. Perhaps worst of all, today's schoolchildren are seeing their peers of color and peers with disabilities subjected to punishment at starkly disproportionate rates, perpetuating a lifetime of inequities.

Here are a few facts about punishment in schools today. American students are suspended and expelled at almost double the rate documented in 1974. Suspensions, expulsions, and arrests have resulted from misbehavior as minor as breaking a pencil or throwing a basketball at another child. Research suggests that experiencing overly punitive discipline in school increases the likelihood of a student dropping out of school — a phenomenon known as "school pushout." Research also indicates that punitive zero tolerance policies have increased referrals to the juvenile justice system for infractions once handled in the schools. These increased referrals produce an increased number of young adults with records, which make it hard to secure everything from student loans to housing.

Moreover, there is a shockingly high level of discrimination in the application of these harsh punishments. According to the Southern Poverty Law Center, African-American students are three times more likely to be suspended and 3.5 times more likely to be expelled than white students, and Latino students are 1.5 times more likely to be suspended and twice as likely to be expelled than white students. Students with disabilities are twice as likely to be suspended and expelled as students without disabilities.

The ACLU is working at the state and federal levels to implement more effective, evidence-based disciplinary policies that will make our schools safer and keep kids in the classroom. Recently, the ACLU signed on to the Dignity in Schools Campaign's national resolution (PDF) for ending school pushout. This resolution, which is being released today, is intended to confront the factors that contribute to pushing youth out of schools. The resolution also provides recommendations to promote positive school climates and alternative approaches to discipline as essential elements for ending this crisis in our schools.

One such solution to the crisis lies in a federal bill pending in the House of Representatives. The ACLU, in conjunction with other civil rights and educational organizations, has been working to support H.R. 2597, the Positive Behavior for Safe and Effective Schools Act (PBSESA). The bill, introduced by Representative Phil Hare (D-Ill.) would give schools the tools they need to improve learning environments. The PBSESA would enable schools to use federal funds to implement evidence-based approaches, such as positive behavior supports (PBS) — a process proven to reduce discipline referrals, support improved academic outcomes, and improve school safety.

Over 9,000 U.S. schools are currently implementing PBS and seeing improved academics and reduced misbehavior as a result. For example, an elementary school in Illinois decreased its suspensions by 85 percent and improved its students' test scores after just two years of implementing PBS. This paradigm has successfully reduced misbehavior, suspensions and expulsions in schools around the country by communicating expectations of students, teaching better decision-making skills, and rewarding good behavior.

There is a valuable lesson here. Far too many students — especially students of color and children with disabilities — are being denied educational opportunities because they are pushed out of school by overly negative environments and harsh disciplinary measures that undermine their learning. Evidence shows that there is, and can be, another way to promote positive school climates. It's time to teach and treat our children well.

Listen to a podcast of ACLU attorneys Alice Farmer and Catherine Kim discuss corporal punishment of students with disabilities, and alternatives to this type of discipline.

(Originally published in Huffington Post.)

In the 2006 – 2007 school year, nearly quarter of a million school children were subjected to corporal punishment in public schools. Impairing Education, a report released yesterday by the ACLU and Human Rights Watch, finds that students with disabilities — who have a right to appropriate, inclusive educational programs that give them the opportunity to thrive — are nonetheless subjected to this violent discipline at disproportionately high rates.

Corporal punishment — from paddling to beating to throwing children into walls or floors — is routine in public schools in many parts of the United States. Impairing Education documents many such cases. No student should be subjected to these abusive forms of discipline, but students with disabilities, who already face extra challenges, can be particularly vulnerable to physical or psychological harm from these punishments.

Anna M.’s son, who has autism, was seven years old when he was punished in school. She told me about an experience at his elementary school:

I’m in the front office ... They bring [my son] into the room. His nose is beet red. He lifts up his shirt sleeve, I get a glimpse of scratches all up his arm. I got overwhelmed, I couldn’t focus ... I wanted to get my son to the doctor. I get him home and I take off his clothes. He was marked, top of his arms, under his arms, down his torso. He had a busted lip, which I hadn’t noticed at first. He said, “they made me wash the blood off before I saw you.”

Corporal punishment causes pain, humiliation, and in some cases deep bruising or other serious injury; it also can have long-lasting psychological consequences. Students with disabilities may see their underlying conditions worsened as a result. Furthermore, it creates a violent, degrading school environment in which all students — and particularly students with disabilities — may struggle to succeed.

Anna M.’s son has changed after he was restrained and beaten. He now struggles with anger, has had nightmares, is reluctant to leave his mother’s side and fears running into the person that administered his punishment. Anna said, “I was afraid for his life, to be honest. He was 52 pounds, or maybe even less, at this point.”

The use of corporal punishment on children with disabilities violates the right to freedom from cruel, degrading treatment and violence guaranteed to them under international human rights law. Children with disabilities have the right to an inclusive education, yet corporal punishment impinges on this right and creates barriers to their success.

There are positive, nonviolent approaches to school discipline that have been proven to lead to safe environments in which children can learn. Positive behavioral supports teach children why what they did was wrong and gives them the tools necessary to improve their behavior. The staff in our schools must be trained on how to discipline children effectively and humanely.

No child should be hit, especially the most vulnerable.

(Originally posted on Daily Kos.)

With state legislatures back in session, we're renewing the fight to take corporal punishment out of public schools. There's a bill pending in Ohio to do just that. Here's our letter supporting this crucial step to protect Ohio's kids.

In recent months we've also seen bills introduced in other states limiting corporal punishment, making it harder for schools to beat children. Click here to find out if paddling is legal and prevalent in your state.

While we hope all states will follow suit, paddling can also be banned school district by school district. More and more districts are adopting discipline policies that throw out the paddle and support effective learning instead. For instance, in recent months, the school districts in Marfa and Aldine in Texas and Muskogee, Oklahoma, have debated banning or limiting corporal punishment, like many other small districts. Meanwhile, Jackson Public School (JPS) District, one of the biggest districts in Mississippi, recently upheld its ban on paddling. Click here to see our letters to JPS.

What can you do? We've put together a "toolkit" for parents that we published with the Our Children, the National PTA magazine. Parents and PTAs can take the lead in campaigns to change school policies. Even if you don't live in a school district that paddles kids, you can help. Parents can write letters to their state legislatures, objecting to laws that permit schools to paddle, and advocating for safe, nonviolent discipline in schools.

New funding from the federal stimulus package can also help. The Department of Education can allocate funding to school districts that want to implement positive behavior discipline systems that teach kids why what they did was wrong and what they can do better. Positive behavior systems are much more effective than paddling; they produce safe, secure classrooms where kids can effectively learn. The Southern Poverty Law Center has more on using federal money for positive behavior.

What’s more, the right to dignity — one of the founding principles of human rights — protects children from abusive or discriminatory school discipline practices. U.S. schools should implement effective, positive discipline systems, so that children’s human rights are protected and so that every student can maximize his or her potential.

To learn more about the ACLU’s work to end corporal punishment, visit: www.aclu.org/corporalpunishment

(Originally posted on DailyKos.)

Two hearings on Wednesday concerned the cases of two of the youngest prisoners of Guantánamo Bay, Omar Khadr and Mohammed Jawad, who were both teenagers when they were captured by U.S. forces.

On Wednesday, pre-trial hearings resumed in the case of Omar Khadr, who was 15 years old when he was shot in the back and captured by the U.S. A legal advisor to the Canadian Department of Foreign Affairs who is permitted one-on-one "welfare visits" with him tells me Khadr, who is now 21, is laboring through the Ontario seventh- and eighth-grade school curriculum she brings him.

Khadr's defense attorneys put the issue of Khadr's age at the time of his capture front-and-center. His lawyers argued that because he was only 15 when U.S. imprisonment and interrogations commenced, Khadr requires a full clinical evaluation by independent—not military—experts on juvenile psychology who can assess the reliability of statements extracted from him and the psychological impact of abusive interrogations and coercive conditions of confinement on a teenager.

Khadr's defense attorney, Lt. Cmdr. William C. Kuebler, said that there are significant segments of Khadr's time at the Bagram Air Base in Afghanistan that Khadr won't discuss with his attorneys, who believe he may be suffering psychological trauma from mistreatment at the hands of U.S. interrogators there. They hope that a trained clinical psychologist will be able to assess whether Khadr's mental state is consistent with his allegations of torture at Bagram.

Khadr's allegations? We don't know much about them, since the government has classified a nine-page affidavit in which Khadr describes his mistreatment in Afghanistan. We do know that Khadr has claimed that he was repeatedly interrogated while he was in excruciating pain, hooded and menaced by barking dogs, and threatened with rape.

Although prosecutor Maj. Jeffrey Groharing urged the commission to "give very little weight to an accused terrorist's claims of abuse" and noted that Khadr's claims were investigated and unsubstantiated, recent revelations suggest that the investigation of Khadr's allegations of mistreatment at Bagram prison was patently inadequate. The military intelligence unit involved in interrogations of Khadr at Bagram prison was the same unit implicated in the deaths of two detainees at that prison, and U.S. investigators later recommended that 27 members of that unit be criminally prosecuted. And yet still the Naval Criminal Investigative Service (NCIS) found it appropriate to find Khadr's claims of mistreatment unsubstantiated.

All this begs the question of what continued effects of mistreatment Khadr could possibly exhibit after the fact. Video footage of then-17-year-old Khadr's interrogation by Canada's Air Force Office of Special Investigations released a month ago provides the first glimpse of an interrogation at Guantánamo Bay. The video, along with an interrogation report (PDF) written a year after the footage was taken, raise concerns not only about the teenager's mental state at the time of both interrogations, but about the conduct of the interrogators as well.

Also on Wednesday was the military commission hearing of Afghan national Mohammed Jawad, whose case brought new revelations about the "Frequent Flyer" sleep deprivation program, a program we recently learned was used by the Chinese on American soldiers during the Korean War. Jawad, who was 16 or 17 years old at the time of his capture, is not accused of any links to al Qaeda or the Taliban.

As recently as a week ago, reports suggested that at least 17 prisoners at Guantánamo Bay have been subjected to the program. But Maj. Jason Orlich, a creator of Guantánamo Bay's "incentives" program that uses long-term sleep deprivation as a punishment for those who misbehave or fail to cooperate, testified that nearly all of the 350 to 400 prisoners held in two Guantánamo Bay prison camps were subject to the program, which entails waking the prisoners, shackling them, and moving them to a different cell along with all their belongings. Maj. Orlich was reluctant to specify the frequency of the moves, but testified that three-hour intervals "would not be abnormal."

Maj. Orlich also revealed that the Frequent Flyer Program was Standard Operating Procedure (SOP), although it did not appear in writing in the SOPs of that time—begging the question of what other detainee treatment policies were omitted from the written records. According to Maj. Orlich, Guantánamo Bay leadership was aware that the Frequent Flyer Program was in use, and the program was a routine included in what the military calls its "daily synchronization matrix." Maj. Orlich also said that the Frequent Flyer Program was ongoing at the time of his departure from Guantánamo Bay in April 2005, and he had never heard of any order to stop the program. This is despite previous government claims that the program had been discontinued in March 2004.

The fact the program continued at Guantánamo Bay even after it was officially banned isn't exactly news: On July 10, Jawad's lawyers announced that prison logs reveal that the Frequent Flyer program was used on Jawad after it was "officially" banned at Guantánamo Bay. According to Jawad's lawyers, in 2004 the military subjected Jawad to two weeks of sleep deprivation in which Jawad was moved 112 times in 14 days. The Frequent Flyer program was used on Jawad only months after his Christmas Day suicide attempt in 2003.

(Around the same time in July 2004, Canada disclosed a document (PDF) in which Canada's foreign intelligence director confirms that a similar Frequent Flyer Program was used on Omar Khadr for three weeks to "soften" him for interrogations by Canadian agents in March 2004—when he was 17. Notably, the Canadian judge found that this treatment of Khadr constituted torture.)

When asked Wednesday whether he thought it was humane to move prisoners every three hours, eight times a day, 112 times in two weeks, Maj. Orlich replied, after a lengthy pause, that yes, he believed it was humane.

I wonder what Maj. Orlich was thinking during that pause.