Student, Teachers, and Officers Preventing School Violence Act of 2018
Floor Speech
Mr. Speaker, I rise today in support of H.R. 4909, the STOP School Violence Act, as amended. But I do so with serious concerns about some of its provisions, and mostly about what the bill fails to do.
H.R. 4909 would authorize $50 million annually for grants administered by the Department of Justice to fund various training and other initiatives intended to enhance school safety. It would authorize another $25 million annually to be used for other related purposes, including physical improvements, such as metal detectors, better locks, and systems for schools to notify law enforcement of emergencies.
The bill is fine as far as it goes, and we should certainly do more to make our schools safer, but it is shameful that we must do so because of our failure to reduce the threat of gun violence to children.
It should be unacceptable to all of us that we must take steps to train staff and students to protect themselves against these types of incidents instead of spending more money on actually educating our young people.
This bill does not include any provisions to strengthen our gun laws or to help keep guns out of the hands of those who should not possess them.
Evidence and experience tell us that we must establish universal background checks instead of the flawed system we now have.
We should encourage States to adopt laws providing for extreme risk protection orders, and we must ban assault weapons and high-capacity ammunition magazines. These steps would help prevent not only school shootings, but would reduce the daily toll of gun violence in our communities.
None of these critical provisions are included in this bill, which was never examined by the Judiciary Committee either through a hearing or a legislative markup session. Had we taken these steps, which we could have done quickly in the exactly 1 month since the tragic Parkland, Florida, shooting, we might have produced a much better bill for floor consideration.
The suspension version of the bill does include an explicit prohibition against the funds being used on firearms or firearms training. Because President Trump and others in the administration have indicated that they believe arming teachers is part of the solution to this problem, it was important to my colleagues and to me that we be assured that this program, at least, will not be used for such a purpose which would actually endanger students, not make them safer.
However, we should have addressed serious concerns that have come to our attention with respect to the anonymous tip reporting systems and threat assessment and intervention teams that would be funded by this bill. We want people to report information about someone who may present a danger to students, but the bill does not include requirements that these systems provide adequate due process protections for students against whom a report is made.
I have longstanding concerns about the increased use of law enforcement in schools. History tells us that, without proper training, use of such policies can have a disproportionate impact on students of color and students with disabilities.
In the decades since Columbine, when the Nation rushed to increase school-based law enforcement efforts, thousands of vulnerable students have entered the school-to-prison pipeline for conduct that should be treated as routine behavior violations.
I fear, therefore, that efforts to increase school-based law enforcement without guardrails to ensure it is done well and based on strong evidence may repeat the risks of the past. My concern is only heightened by the Trump administration's ongoing efforts to remove important tools to ensure States and school districts understand their civil rights obligations when disciplining students.
I urge Secretary DeVos and Attorney General Sessions to maintain current discipline and school resource officer guidance to ensure implementation of this bill does not exacerbate the school-to-prison pipeline.
We should have had the opportunity to address these important issues through consideration in committee, but we did not.
Like the sponsors of this bill, I want Congress to do more to make our schools safer. Therefore, I will support this bill today, not withstanding the serious concerns I have outlined, with the hope that we will address these concerns going forward.
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Mr. NADLER. Esty).
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Mr. NADLER. Jackson Lee), the ranking member of the Crime, Terrorism, Homeland Security, and Investigations Subcommittee.
Ms. JACKSON LEE. Mr. Speaker, I thank the distinguished ranking member, the chairman of the committee, and the proponents of this bill. I acknowledge their commitment and certainly their sincerity.
Mr. Speaker, I joined the thousands of young people today on the west side of the Capitol as they came from schools throughout this region to stand for 17 minutes to acknowledge those who lost their lives in Florida at a high school.
That should not have been their destiny. It should not have been their destiny to die in a bloody massacre in their school. It should not have been the destiny of those in the Pulse nightclub, Sutherland Springs, Columbine, Las Vegas, Texas Tech, the streets of Houston in my district, Chicago, or any other place.
This bill is not about preventing the unsafe use of guns. Guns kill. The young people today made it very clear that they will not stop until we have real gun safety legislation barring the AR-15 and we have universal background checks.
At the same time, I believe these bills of our colleagues are important legislative initiatives. So, in tribute to these individuals who have passed, but also the Members, I believe the STOP School Violence Act of 2017 is a ready response to aspects of school safety and security that are very important.
One of the unique aspects of this bill that I think should be noted is the language in the bill itself that indicates it is through evidence-based strategies and programs to prevent violence, which may include the use of appropriate technologies. The bill readily acknowledges many aspects of school safety.
The AFT and the National School Boards Association are two of the supporters of this legislation. But it does not answer totally the question of the parent who said: ``I didn't get a chance that morning to say good-bye to my daughter.''
We must address the question of gun violence. I believe it is important that we put a stop to children evacuating schools, like this one, and for us to be able to address a real, nonpartisan, bipartisan response to the proliferation of guns, whether it means enforcing gun laws, lifting the age to 21, or banning bump stocks, all points we thought the President was supporting but, unfortunately, he is not.
I do want to raise the point of the tip line. I think it is extremely important, as long as it is guided by teachers, counselors, and mental health experts. We must be very sure that we do not have racial disparities where the largest percentage of individuals impacted by the tip line may be African-American youth, Hispanic youth, or Muslim youth.
We know that racial disparities are real because the largest percentage of those who are sent to detention or juvenile centers happen to be African-American children, young boys and girls, which I really believe is something that has to stop.
In addition, it is important that we comply with civil rights law. I think the advocates of civil rights organizations like the Legal Defense Fund are absolutely right. There must be a standard where the civil rights of these children are not violated on this tip line and that due process is provided for them.
We must make a statement here today that, as we support this legislation, we do not intend to support legislation that we skew to be biased toward these young people. These young people in impoverished neighborhoods and schools, Mr. Speaker, deserve to learn as well. But we want safe schools. Those safe schools can be had with the beginning of this infrastructure.
Ms. JACKSON LEE. We can begin with this question of school safety and a tip line and best evidence and best practices. We can begin with grants to ensure the safety of our schools. We can allow schools to make choices about what will make them more safe.
At the same time, we must safeguard our children and their rights. We must answer the cry of the children. We will not finish our task until we have real gun safety legislation.
Enough is enough. It is time to act now. I need my Republican brothers and sisters to work with me.
Mr. Speaker, I include in the Record a letter from the Legal Defense and Education Fund and a news article published in the New York on March 13, 2018. NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, Inc., Washington, DC, March 12, 2018. Re H.R. 4909, the STOP School Violence Act of 2018. Hon. Paul Ryan, Speaker, House of Representatives, Washington, DC. Hon. Nancy Pelosi, Minority Leader, House of Representatives, Washington, DC.
Dear Speaker Ryan and Leader Pelosi: On behalf of the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, Inc. (LDF), we write to express our concerns with H.R. 4909, the Student, Teachers, and Officers Preventing School Violence Act of 2018 (the STOP School Violence Act or Act). This bill will fail to achieve its goal of improving school safety and will instead create more dangerous conditions for students, especially students of color.
Founded in 1940 by Thurgood Marshall, LDF is the nation's oldest civil rights law organization. For almost 80 years, LDF has relied on the Constitution and federal and state civil rights laws to pursue equality and justice for African Americans and other people of color. Since the historic U.S. Supreme Court decision in Brown v. Board of Education, which LDF litigated and won, we have continued to represent students of color to ensure they receive quality and equitable educational opportunities.
Unfortunately, we all have too much experience dealing with the aftermath of school shootings. After the incidents in Columbine, CO and Sandy Hook, CT, families, school districts, and lawmakers took a variety of actions intended to prevent future tragedies. In studying these actions and their consequences, we can see which efforts work, and which do not. The STOP School Violence Act does not do enough to ensure that effective methods that protect all students are used by our nation's schools and risks furthering racial disparities in education.
The U.S. Department of Education and the U.S. Secret Service have published a guide (the ED/SS Guide) to maintaining safe schools, recommending the following steps:
1. Systematically surveying students, teachers, and other stakeholders about the emotional climate of a school to be able to continuously assess and improve school climate;
2. Encouraging students and teachers to respectfully listen to each other;
3. Ensuring that students feel comfortable speaking with adults in the school community;
4. Preventing and addressing bullying through promotion of pro-social behaviors;
5. Involving students and staff in the maintenance of a culture of safety and respect;
6. Ensuring all students have a trusting relationship with at least one adult at school; and
7. Creating mechanisms for developing and maintaining safe school climates.
The ED/SS guide emphasizes that safe and secure school environments are created only through focusing on maintaining a respectful and supportive school environment where students' emotional and academic needs are met, with things like effective threat assessment only a small part. These recommendations are supported by other experts.
To effectively make schools safer, the STOP Schools Act should provide grants to states and districts to help cultivate these positive environments. To do this, the Act should focus on expanding resources, such as school counselors, mental health services, social workers, and proven programs, such as Positive Behavioral Interventions and Supports (PBIS) and restorative practices, and prohibit assigning law enforcement to schools. Instead, the Act provides grants to states and school districts to improve school security by providing training to prevent student violence, including for law enforcement officers, school personnel, and students; developing and operating anonymous reporting systems for threats of school violence; developing and operating school threat assessment and intervention teams that may include coordination with law enforcement agencies and school personnel, and specialized training for school officials in responding to mental health crises; coordinating with law enforcement; using metal detectors, locks, lighting, and other deterrent measures; implementing security assessments and training; installing technology for expedited notification of law enforcement during an emergency; and taking ``any other measures that . . . may provide a significant improvement in security.'' These provisions are only a small part of the strategy that experts recommend for maintaining safe school environments, and as written, the provisions have a high risk of exacerbating race-based disparities in how students are treated by school police and staff.
The Act's language regarding coordination with law enforcement and allowing any measures that ``may'' provide more security will allow school districts to use the grant funding to increase law enforcement presence rather than on evidence-based interventions. Research has shown that having more police in schools does not make schools safer, but, results in an increasing number of students being led from schools to the justice system. Although Black and Latinx students do not misbehave more than White students, students of color make up over 58% of school-based arrests, but only 40% of public school enrollment. Black students are more than twice as likely as their White peers to be referred to law enforcement or arrested at school. Additionally, research shows that police officers perceive Black youth as older and more culpable than they do similarly-situated White youth, and this bias leads to the over-criminalization of Black students. Furthermore, the presence of police in schools makes Black students and students who have been victims feel less safe, which would negatively affect school climate.
To address these disparities, a clause should be added to the Act requiring that data be collected on any activities undertaken with grant funding to determine whether they are disproportionately affecting students of color or other at- risk groups. Any districts that are discriminating against students should not receive federal funding.
Moreover, the Act's anonymous reporting system does not have prescribed due process or civil rights protections and could lead to more racial disparities in how students are treated at school. As the ED/SS Guide cautions, anonymous systems could lead to individuals reporting false and malicious information. It will be an easy vehicle for students or staff who hold implicit or explicit biases against students of color to report those students as being a danger to themselves or others based on discriminatory reasons. In order to protect students, the tip system should be implemented as recommended in the guide: it should be housed within a wider system of trust amongst students and staff so that all feel comfortable filing reports and providing any required additional information in assessing threats. In addition, the communications should be tracked and data disaggregated and assessed for racial disparities in threat reporting.
Finally, the STOP Violence Act does not restrict its funding to public schools and does not state that all recipients of funds must comply with existing civil rights laws. The Act should include a statement that any school receiving funds under this Act complies with all federal law, including civil rights laws protecting students on the bases of race, color, national origin; sex; disability; and age.
All students deserve to attend safe and welcoming schools, and we encourage you to provide states and districts with additional resources to achieve this goal. Unfortunately, the STOP School Violence Act as currently written will not improve school safety and will risk further harm to students who are already disserved by the system. Thank you for considering this letter. If you have any questions, please contact us. Respectfully submitted, Todd A. Cox,
Director of Policy. Monique L. Dixon,
Deputy Director of Policy. Nicole Dooley,
Policy Counsel. ____ [From the New York Times, Mar. 13, 2018]
Trump Finds Unlikely Culprit in School Shootings: Obama Discipline Policies (By Erica L. Green)
Washington.--After a gunman marauded through Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School last month, conservative commentators--looking for a culprit--seized on an unlikely target: an Obama-era guidance document that sought to rein in the suspensions and expulsions of minority students.
Black students have never been the perpetrators of the mass shootings that have shocked the nation's conscience nor have minority schools been the targets. But the argument went that any relaxation of disciplinary efforts could let a killer slip through the cracks.
And this week, President Trump made the connection, announcing that Education Secretary Betsy DeVos will lead a school safety commission charged in part with examining the ``repeal of the Obama administration's `Rethink School Discipline' policies.''
To civil rights groups, connecting an action to help minority students with mass killings in suburban schools smacked of burdening black children with a largely white scourge.
``Yet again, the Trump administration, faced with a domestic crisis, has responded by creating a commission to study an unrelated issue in order to ultimately advance a discriminatory and partisan goal,'' said Sherrilyn Ifill, the president and director-counsel at NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund Inc.
``School shootings are a grave and preventable problem, but rescinding the school discipline guidance is not the answer,'' she said. ``Repealing the guidance will not stop the next school shooter, but it will ensure that thousands more students of color are unnecessarily ushered into the school-to-prison pipeline.''
The issue of the Obama-era discipline guidance was raised formally by Senator Marco Rubio, Republican of Florida, who, after seeing a flurry of conservative news media reports, wrote a letter to Ms. DeVos and Attorney General Jeff Sessions questioning whether the guidance allowed the shooting suspect, Nikolas Cruz, to evade law enforcement and carry out the massacre at Stoneman Douglas High.
It was, on its face, an odd point: Mr. Cruz is white, and far from evading school disciplinary procedures, he had been expelled from Stoneman Douglas.
``The overarching goals of the 2014 directive to mitigate the school-to-prison pipeline, reduce suspensions and expulsions, and to prevent racially biased discipline are laudable and should be explored,'' Mr. Rubio wrote, asking that the guidance be revised. ``However, any policy seeking to achieve these goals requires basic common sense and an understanding that failure to report troubled students, like Cruz, to law enforcement can have dangerous repercussions.''
Broward County educators and advocates saw Mr. Rubio's letter as an indictment of a program called Promise, which the county instituted in 2013--one year before the Obama guidance was issued--and has guided its discipline reforms to reduce student-based arrests in Broward County, where Stoneman Douglas is.
The N.A.A.C.P. said that Mr. Rubio ``notably backs away from raising the purchase age for assault-style rifles and restricting magazine capacity,'' and instead focuses on a system that once sent one million minority students to Florida jails for ``simple and routine discipline issues ranging from talking back to teachers to schoolyard scuffles.''
The program was praised by former Secretary of Education Arne Duncan, and echoes the goals of the 2014 Obama guidance in discouraging schools from using law enforcement as a first line of defense for low-level offenses.
In the days before making his request, Mr. Rubio released a proposal that he said would remedy lapses in the Promise program and the 2014 guidance.
In a tweet on Tuesday, Mr. Rubio noted that the gunman was not in the Promise program, but had displayed violent and threatening behavior.
``The more we learn, the more it appears the problem is not the program or the DOE guidance itself, but the way it is being applied,'' Mr. Rubio said, referring to the Education Department. ``It may have created a culture discourages referral to law enforcement even in egregious cases like the #Parkland shooter.''
Long before the attack in Parkland, Fla., the 2014 discipline guidelines, which encouraged schools to examine their discipline disparities and to take stock of discriminatory policies, were already on Ms. DeVos's radar-- but not because they were seen as a possible culprit in the next school shooting. Conservatives were using the Trump administration's effort to rein in federal overreach to reverse policies designed to protect against what the Obama administration had seen as discriminatory practices.
The ``Rethink Discipline,'' package that Mr. Trump's commission will examine includes guidance that the Obama administration issued on the legal limitations on the use of restraints and seclusion, corporal punishment and equity for special education students.
In recent months, educators and policy experts from across the country have traveled to Washington to voice support for and opposition to the disciplinary guidance, in private meetings with officials at the Education Department and in a series of public forums.
At a briefing hosted by the United States Commission on Civil Rights, dozens of policy experts, researchers, educators and parents sounded off on the Obama-era discipline policy in a meeting that became so racially charged that some black attendees walked out.
Since the discipline guidelines were issued, conservatives have blamed the document for creating unsafe educational environments by pressuring schools to keep suspension numbers down to meet racial quotas, even if it meant ignoring troubling and criminal behavior. Teachers who sought suspensions or expulsions of minority students were painted as racists, conservatives maintained.
``Evidence is mounting that efforts to fight the school-to- prison pipeline is creating a school climate catastrophe and has if anything put at-risk students at greater risk,'' said Max Eden, a senior fellow at the conservative Manhattan Institute, who argued that teacher bias was not the driving force behind school discipline.
But proponents argued that racial bias was well documented.
When the guidance was issued, federal data found that African-American students without disabilities were more than three times as likely as their white peers without disabilities to be expelled or suspended, and that more than 50 percent of students who were involved in school-related arrests or who were referred to law enforcement were Hispanic or African-American.
``Children's safety also includes protection from oppression and bigotry and injustice,'' Daniel J. Losen, director of the Center for Civil Rights Remedies at the University of California at Los Angeles's Civil Rights Project, wrote in testimony to the Civil Rights Commission. ``Fear-mongering and rhetoric that criminalizes youth of color, children from poor families and children with disabilities should not be tolerated.''
The Education and Justice Departments wrote in a 2014 Dear Colleague letter that discipline disparities could be caused by a range of factors, but the statistics in the federal data ``are not explained by more frequent or more serious misbehavior by students of color.'' The departments also noted that several civil rights investigations had verified that minority students were disciplined more harshly than their white peers for the same infractions.
``In short, racial discrimination in school discipline is a real problem,'' the guidance said.
In recent months, Ms. DeVos has said change will be coming. She has already moved to rescind a regulation that protects against racial disparities in special education placements. Her goal, she said last month, was to be ``sensitive to all of the parties involved.''
In a bruising interview on ``60 Minutes'' on Sunday, Ms. DeVos said that the disproportionate discipline issue ``comes down to individual kids.'' She declined to say whether she believed that black students disciplined more harshly for the same infraction were the victims of institutional racism.
``We're studying it carefully and are committed to making sure students have opportunity to learn in safe and nurturing environments,'' she said.
Ms. DeVos's office for civil rights also announced that it would scale back the scope of investigations, reversing an approach taken under the Obama administration to conduct exhaustive reviews of school districts' practices and data when a discrimination complaint was filed.
But Ms. DeVos's own administration has continued to find racial disparities. In November, the Education Department found that the Loleta Union Elementary School District in California doled out harsher treatment to Native American students than their white peers. For example, a Native American student received a one-day out-of-school suspension for slapping another student on the way to the bus, in what was that student's first disciplinary referral of the year. A white student received lunch detention for slapping two students on the same day--the student's fifth and sixth referrals that year.
While Mr. Cruz was repeatedly kicked out of class and ultimately expelled, it is unclear whether he was ever referred to the police for his behavior in school. However, Mr. Cruz was known to law enforcement, which never found cause to arrest him, and a report of troublesome behavior to the F.B.I. went unheeded.
The Broward County superintendent, Robert Runcie, said that Mr. Rubio's effort to connect the district's discipline policies to the Stoneman Douglas shooting was misguided.
``We're not going to dismantle a program that's been successful in the district because of false information that someone has put out there,'' Mr. Runcie said on Twitter. ``We will neither manage nor lead by rumors.''
Mr. Speaker, I rise to speak on H.R. 4909, the ``STOP School Violence Act of 2017.''
This important bipartisan legislation comes before us today on the one month anniversary of a senseless and tragic school massacre, which claimed 17 lives.
On February 14, 2018 our world lost Alyssa Alhadeff, Martin Duque, Nicholas Dworet, Jaime Guttenberg, Luke Hoyer, Cara Loughran, Gina Montalto, Joaquin Oliver, Alaina Petty, Meadow Pollack, Helena Ramsay, Alex Schachter, Carmen Schentrup, and Peter Wang.
Also lost, were three coaches: Chris Hixon, Aaron Feis, and Scott Beigel, who was also a biology teacher.
Today, in their honor, you, the students organized a nationwide school walkout for gun violence prevention. Parkland wants to go down in history as more than just survivors. We in Congress can help make that happen.
I was proud to stand in solidarity with you all this morning, hand- in-hand as you were armed with passion and vision; unapologetic about your stance on these issues as you continue to display your advocacy as bold, relentless and engaged leaders of our future.
Mr. Speaker, they want universal background checks, and sensible legislation that will curtail gun violence, thereby, keeping guns out of their schools and out of the hands of those that threaten to take lives and wreak havoc in our churches, theatres, concerts and schools.
``When will it all stop,'' they asked. We too in Congress must evaluate ourselves and ask: when will we respond adequately?
My heart goes out to students and parents all across America who find themselves routinely faced with these tragic incidents of great proportion; from Columbine to Virginia Tech, Sandy Hook, and Parkland; and our cities like Chicago, Baltimore and the rest of America.
These are the faces of our children as they were leaving Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Fla., after the Valentine's Day deadly shooting.
``I didn't get a chance that morning to say goodbye to my daughter, but I'm here today to make sure that I'm one of the last fathers that ever has to bury their daughter or son or loved one from a senseless act of violence in a school,'' said Ryan Petty, whose daughter Alaina Petty was among the 17 killed.
Mr. Petty, I hear you. I agree with my colleagues, that school safety is paramount and that is why I signed onto this bill following the Parkland school shooting.
This bill is not perfect and I will address my concerns. But it is a good first step.
As Ranking Member of the Judiciary Crime Subcommittee, I caution any measure that could adversely impact our constitutional rights.
Had this bill went through regular order, I would have amended it with a clause that would prescribe due process or civil rights protections in the anonymous reporting system. This would allow the accused with notice and an opportunity to respond with representation.
As written, this bill is amenable to abuse where false and malicious information can be reported by any staff or student who may have a bias against the accused but alarmingly, the accused has no avenue for a remedy in defending him/herself.
I want to ensure that the current race-based disparities in how students are treated by school police and staff are not further exacerbated by this bill as written.
H.R. 4909 provides that there be coordination with law enforcement in providing security, which will increase law enforcement presence in schools rather than use evidence-based interventions.
I would like to add to this bill, a clause requiring that data be collected of any activities undertaken with grant funding to determine whether they are disproportionately affecting students of color or other at-risk groups.
Research has shown, when law enforcement engage minority students, there is a high likelihood of increasing the `schoolhouse to jailhouse' track.
Students of color make up over 58% of school-based arrests, but only % of public school enrollment. A judicious approach is therefore warranted in implementing this bill.
Finally, any recipient of federal grants should be required to comply with all federal laws, including civil rights laws protecting students based on race, color, religion, national origin, sex, disability and age.
In our quest for school safety we must always exercise due care in balancing a benefit against the backdrop of our civil liberties so that we do not repeat incidents like North Carolina, where a young girl was grabbed around the neck with one arm, by school resources officer gripping her arm with his other hand and flipping her backward out of her chair.
I stand firm with students everywhere because they ``all'' are the future of America. And standing with them all no matter where they are from is a net positive for us all.
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Mr. NADLER. Jackson Lee).
Ms. JACKSON LEE. Mr. Speaker, in the course of my coming over to the floor, we heard a comment, which I intend to check, of an accidental discharge of a firearm by a resource officer in a school in Virginia. The gun went off.
I just want to conclude by saying that we have brought people together in that nothing in this bill will allow for Federal funds to be used in these grants for the arming of teachers. I think the AFT has evidenced their support for that.
Mr. Speaker, today, young people across the country are taking a stand and calling upon this Congress to do something about the scourge of gun violence that has terrorized our schools and streets for too long. This bill fails to do so, and it should not and cannot be our only response to these demands.
We must make schools safer. But the best way to do that is to do more to prevent gun violence from occurring in the first place. Congress must do more to stop gun violence. Congress should pass an assault weapons ban. Congress should pass an effective background check. Congress should ban high-capacity magazines.
Congress should do a lot more. It is not enough to say that staff and students must do more to protect themselves. Mr. Speaker, it is time to take decisive action to stop gun violence in our communities.
You are faced with a simple choice, Mr. Speaker: Will you stand with these young people who are demanding action or will you stand with the NRA and be complicit in the continuing violence in our schools and in our streets?
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