[8] Prohibited in family daycares and daycares; With respect to foster families, the agency`s policy states that corporal punishment should not be used, but cannot be prohibited by law. In September 2020, the Protecting Our Students in Schools Act of 2020 (H.R. 8460) was introduced in the U.S. House of Representatives. The bill sought to prohibit corporal punishment in any federally funded school. In November 2020, a companion bill to the Protecting Our Students in Schools Act was introduced in the U.S. Senate. Both bills did not pass at the end of Congress in January 2021. In June 2021, the Protecting Our Students in Schools Act (H.R. 8460) was reinstated following the inauguration of the new U.S.
Congress. A bill to end corporal punishment in schools was introduced in the US House of Representatives in June 2010 during the 111th Congress. [65] [66] The bill, H.R. 5628,[67] was referred to the Education and Labour Committee of the U.S. House of Representatives, where it was not put to a vote. The above sections highlighted the marked differences in corporal punishment in schools solely based on the race, gender or disability of the student. Of course, every student has racial, gender, or disability status, so we were curious to see if the risk of corporal punishment was additive across the intersection of these student characteristics. We predicted that Black boys with disabilities would have the highest rates of corporal punishment in school; We looked at the data to determine if this was true.
Numerous studies have shown that there are differences in corporal punishment of students based on racial and ethnic boundaries, gender and disability. [48] [16] In general, results suggest that boys, Black students and students with disabilities are more likely to be targets of corporal punishment. [16] These differences may violate three federal laws prohibiting discrimination on the basis of race, sex, and disability: Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972, and Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973. [41] [page needed] In October 2020, a bill to ban corporal punishment in Virgin Islands public schools (Law No. 33-0103), rejected by the Virgin Islands Senate. The bill was reintroduced in 2021 under Bill No. 34-0097 and passed as Bill 8516 in December 2021. [6] With the enactment of Act 8516, corporal punishment was prohibited in public schools in the Virgin Islands. In most states, corporal punishment inflicted by a parent (disputed) remains legal under laws that make exceptions to state law on the crimes of assault, criminal violence, domestic violence, sexual assault, sexual abuse, or child abuse.
These exceptions generally stipulate that no criminal offence has been committed if certain acts are committed against a minor by the parents or caregiver. However, the dividing line between permissible corporal punishment and punishment, which is legally defined as abuse, varies from state to state and is not always clear (laws generally allow for « reasonable force » and « non-excessive corporal punishment »). Such language is often vague and defined by the courts under the common law outside of statutory law and is necessarily subjective and fact-based, so that most cases are a question of fact as to whether or not it is reasonable or not excessive. Examples of laws authorizing corporal punishment of children include two different Minnesota legislature articles that allow parents and teachers to apply corporal punishment as a form of discipline by creating explicit exemptions to state child abuse laws for « reasonable and moderate physical discipline. » [21] [22] The use of exceptions to corporal punishment also raises legal issues. In 2008, the Minnesota Supreme Court handled a case involving a man who struck his 12-year-old son 36 times with a maple paddle. The trial court ruled that this was an abuse, but was overturned on appeal. The Minnesota Supreme Court upheld the annulment, stating, « We are not prepared to establish a clear rule that inflicting pain constitutes either physical injury or physical abuse, as it would effectively prohibit any corporal punishment inflicted on children by their parents » and « it is clear to us that the legislature did not intend to prohibit corporal punishment. » [23] [24] (report in « Corporal Punishment Use Found in Schools in 21 States, » Education Week, August 23, 2016, www.edweek.org/ew/articles/2016/08/23/corporal-punishment-use-found-in-schools-in.html) In September 2018, the Georgia School of Innovation and the Classics in Georgia sparked controversy when Superintendent Jody Boulineau proposed reintroducing corporal punishment. A third of parents agreed with the proposal.
M. Boulineau said in an interview with CBS that he was surprised by the outrage of some parents. Google`s grades for school dropped two points, and several parents expressed in their reviews that they wanted to find academic alternatives out of fear for their children`s safety. The school has embarked on a counter-campaign to improve Google`s lowered grade. [78] The use of objects for corporal punishment can result in serious injury. A report by the Southern Poverty Law Center found that during the 2013-14 school year in the United States, more than 600 public school students were subjected to corporal punishment every day. In four southern states (Mississippi, Alabama, Arkansas and Texas), more than 70 percent of all public school students in the United States were physically reprimanded. Corporal punishment was used disproportionately against black students, with black girls beaten more than three times more often than white girls (5.2% versus 1.7%) and black boys almost twice as likely to be beaten as white boys (14% versus 7.5%).
The UN Human Rights Committee has expressed concern about the use of corporal punishment of children in institutions such as schools, prisons, homes and « all forms of child care at the federal, state and local levels. » In April 2014, it recommended that the government take measures to eliminate corporal punishment in all areas, including through legislation, the promotion of non-violent forms of discipline, and public information on the harmful effects of corporal punishment. [27] During the Second Universal Periodic Review of human rights practices in the United States, the UN Human Rights Council report also included a recommendation to « prohibit corporal punishment of children in all areas, including at home and school, and to ensure that the United States promotes nonviolent forms of discipline as alternatives to corporal punishment. » [28] The U.S. government accepted only the part of the recommendation that concerned the promotion of nonviolent discipline. [29] At the federal level, corporal punishment is not prohibited in all public and private schools.
