ON AVERAGE, BLACK STUDENTS IN AMERICAN SCHOOLS ARE
15%
of the K-12 school-age population
38%
of the students who received at least one out-of-school suspension
6X
more likely to receive a school suspension than white girls
4X
more likely to receive a school suspension than white boys
"Suspended is a penetrating study that reveals how school suspensions and unfair grading practices target inner-city Black children and set them up to fail in later life—a stinging indictment and a must-read for anyone wanting to truly understand persistent urban poverty."
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— Elijah Anderson,
Yale University, author of Code of the Street: Decency, Violence, and the Moral Life of the Inner City
"Bell's analysis of students' experiences with anti-Blackness and school punishment is both powerful and gut-wrenching. Educators and student advocates who are serious about reducing violence in schools—especially the violence schools themselves perpetrate—need to read this unique and important book."
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— Aaron Kupchik, University of Delaware, author of The Real School Safety Problem: The Long-Term Consequences of Harsh School Punishment
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"Well-conceived and organized, as well as theoretically and empirically rich, this book holds the promise to impact practice and policy. Adding to the literature on school violence and the many ways it negatively impacts the educational experiences of Black students, it also draws from the ideas of antiblackness, which make it fresh, timely, and relevant to contemporary conversations."
Keffrelyn D. Brown University of Texas at Austin, coauthor of Black Intellectual Thought in Education: The Missing Traditions of Anna Julia Cooper, Carter G. Woodson, and Alain LeRoy Locke
SUSPENDED: Punishment, Violence & The Failure of School Safety
The disturbing truth: school suspension does more than impede Black students’ academic achievement—it also impacts their parents’ employment and can violate state and federal laws.
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Focusing on schools in inner-city and suburban Detroit, Bell draws on 160 in-depth interviews with Black high school students, their parents, and their teachers to illuminate the negative outcomes that are associated with out-of-school suspension. Bell also sheds light on the inherent shortcomings of school safety measures as he describes how schools fail to protect Black students, which leaves them vulnerable to bullying and victimization. The students he interviews offer detailed insight into how the lack of protection they received in school intensified their fear of being harmed and even motivated them to use violence to establish a reputation that discouraged attacks.
A thought-provoking and urgent work, Suspended calls for an inclusive national dialogue on school punishment and safety reform. It will leave readers engrossed in the students' and parents' tearful narratives as they share how school suspension harmed students' grades, disrupted parents' employment, violated state and federal laws, and motivated them to withdraw from punitive districts.
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CHARLES BELL, Ph.D.
​Dr. Charles Bell is an associate professor in the Department of Criminal Justice Sciences at Illinois State University. His research explores how out-of-school suspension, seclusion, restraint, and school safety measures impact students, parents, and teachers. He also examines social factors that contribute to violent student-student and student-teacher altercations. Professor Bell's work has been published in several scholarly and public engagement outlets such as Urban Education, Children and Youth Services Review, Journal of Crime and Justice, The Conversation, Kappan, Sociology Compass, etc. The Society for the Study of Social Problems (SSSP) selected his book Suspended: Punishment, Violence, and the Failure of School Safety (Johns Hopkins University Press, 2021) as a finalist for the 2021 C. Wright Mills Book Award. Professor Bell is also a recipient of the 2023-2024 CAST Outstanding Researcher Award (Pre-Tenure), the American Society of Criminology Division on People of Color and Crime Teaching Award, the 2021-2022 CAST Outstanding Teacher Award (Pre-Tenure), the 2019 Midwest Sociological Society Research Grant, and the ISU African American Studies Summer Research Initiative Award.
Professor Bell is a subject matter expert on school discipline, violence, and safety projects with the National Center for School Safety (NCSS) and the Center for Disease Control (CDC). He has also served as an expert witness in state and federal school punishment cases.
Professor Bell has been interviewed and cited by several news outlets such as NBC News, NPR, Detroit News, WGLT, Atlanta Black Star, Lakeshore PBS, Detroit PBS, WCBU Peoria, WMBD Central Illinois, and Aljazeera America. His next book, under contract with New York University Press, focuses on how school seclusion and restraint impact families of children with disabilities.
“Safety and security don't just happen, they are the result of collective consensus and public investment. We owe our children, the most vulnerable citizens in our society, a life free of violence and fear.”
— Nelson Mandela
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