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Podcast: New Books in African American Studies
Episode: Aaron Kupchik, "Suspended Education: School Punishment and the Legacy of Racial Injustice" (NYU Press, 2025)
Description: Every year, millions of public school students are suspended. This overused punishment removes students from the classroom, but it does not improve their behavior. Instead, suspension disrupts their education, harming the students, their families, and their schools. Black students suffer most within this broken system, experiencing a far greater risk of school punishment and the significant harms that accompany it. Many activists and scholars have considered how school punishment increases racial inequity, but few have thought to ask why. Why do we punish students the way we do, and why have we allowed this harmful practice to impact the l...