Iowa ACLU Chapter Pushes Schools To Drop School Resource Officers Because Black Kids Are Arrested At Higher Rate
Reagan Reese on December 7, 2022
The Iowa chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) is encouraging school districts to drop their school resource officers because black students are arrested at a higher rate than white students, according to the ACLU Iowa website.
The ACLU Iowa toolkit details statistics on arrests and school resource officers noting that almost 1 of 5 secondary public schools have a school resource officer. Black students in Iowa are arrested 7.7 times more often than white students, with “Latinx” students arrested 1.9 more often, according to the ACLU Iowa website.
The toolkit continues to note that black students are five times more likely to be referred to law enforcement than white students. Iowa’s numbers are the “third worst discrepancy rate between Black and white students” for both arrest and referral rate, according to the toolkit.
In place of school resource officers, the toolkit suggests school counselors, school social workers and school psychologists. Iowa does not meet the recommended professional-to-student ratio for school counselors, school social workers or school psychologists, the toolkit showed.
The toolkit also notes that students with disabilities are arrested three times more often and referred to law enforcement 2.8 times more than students without disabilities.
In 2021, the state’s largest school district Des Moines Public Schools axed its school resource officers to replace them with “restoration and safety coordinators,” according to the school district website. The school also added campus monitors and community leadership teams after nixing school resource officers.
ACLU Iowa did not immediately respond to the Daily Caller News Foundation’s request for comment.
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