Racism Obstructs the Path to School Safety and Educational Equity: The Need for an Anti‐Racism Focus in School Violence Prevention

This commentary was motivated by the Black Lives Matter (BLM) movement the federal executive order on September 4, 2020 banning anti-racism training of federal employees. We believe, and the empirical evidence suggests, that positive social interactions, celebration of diversity, equity in access to educational resources and equal treatment of behavioral issues are vital to ensure our schools are places where youth can learn free from being hurt, bullied, or singled out by authorities. We outline how racism plays a role in school violence and how anti-racism may help to create safe schools for all students where they are treated equally regardless of race, ethnicity, religion, or sexuality. We focus on race because it animates several aspects school safety and violence prevention efforts. Racism in this context refers to structural factors and racial bias that underlie issues of school safety. Structural factors of racism refer to the consequences of years of unfavorable policies that disadvantage people of color compared to Whites. Policies that prohibited Blacks to enroll in certain schools or colleges are the obvious example of this, but the redlining that occurred after World War II and continue that segregated Blacks from Whites in cities and suburbs across the nation are also culpable.1 Redlining resulted in fewer resources from tax revenues for local public schools based on property values. These structural factors set the stage for disadvantage that has several negative consequences for