Hello, I'm City Journal editor Brian Anderson.

Thanks for joining us for the 10 Blocks podcast featuring urban policy and cultural commentary with City Journal editors, contributors, and special guests.

During the Obama years, the federal government's education bureaucracy made addressing racial equity in K-12 school discipline one of its top priorities.

In January of 2014, the U.S. Department of Education, along with the Department of Justice,

sent one of its infamous dear colleague letters to every school district in the country,

laying out guidelines to local officials to avoid racial bias when suspending or expelling students,

or else face federal lawsuits.

But nearly half a decade before that order was announced,

public school leaders in St. Paul, Minnesota had already embarked on an ambitious crusade to

dismantle the purported school-to-prison pipeline. The former superintendent of St. Paul Public Schools

repeatedly claimed that white privilege

was the root cause of the disparities in punishment, that teachers were being culturally

ignorant and insensitive to student needs. In 2011, that superintendent ordered all St. Paul

schools to dramatically reduce the suspension rates for

African American students, in addition to other racial equity policies enacted during her tenure.

Well, what happens to teachers, parents, and students when schools apply these contentious

social justice ideas to classroom discipline.

Joining me today to discuss that question and what happened in St. Paul Public Schools

is Catherine Kirsten. She's a writer and attorney, a senior fellow at the Center for the American Experiment,

which is based in Minnesota, and a first-time contributor to City Journal,

her wonderful and informative essay, No Thug Left Behind, appeared in our winter 2017 issue,

and you can find it on our website.

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