Before he was suspended, Zaire Byrd was thriving. He acted in school plays, played on the football team and trained with other athletes. He had never been suspended before — he’d never even received detention.
But when Byrd got involved in a fight after school one day, none of that seemed to matter to administrators. Byrd said he was defending himself and two friends after three other students threatened to rob them. Administrators at Tri-Cities High School in Georgia called the altercation a “group fight” — an automatic 10-day suspension. After a disciplinary hearing, they sent him to an alternative school.
The experience nearly derailed his education.
“The last four years were a lot for me, from online school to getting suspended,” said Byrd, who started high school remotely during the pandemic. “I could have learned more, but between all that and changing schools, it was hard.”
The problem is these stupid fuck zero-tolerance laws and policies. I’m not nearly in a position to argue if they are or aren’t intentionally racist, but they’re certainly more likely to impact non-white students.
But, still, the shit I did in middle and high school would have resulted in me being kicked the fuck out if it happened now, so I kinda wonder if we’re doing very much the wrong thing by ratcheting up the punishment for shit that, in the past, would have been more of a time-out and less of a life-wrecking moment.