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IV. Offenses Leading to Corporal Punishment

Students are beaten in schools for a wide range of infractions. Though corporal punishment is never a legitimate response to misbehavior, it is particularly troubling when used as a disproportionate, angry response to minor infractions that might reasonably be expected from any child. The punishment is frequently meted out in an arbitrary manner, leaving students unsure why they were punished and angry about the injury they have suffered. Even in cases where students committed serious infractions, corporal punishment is not an effective method of redressing the problem.

Disproportionate Responses to Minor Misbehavior

The large majority of instances of corporal punishment reported to Human Rights Watch was for minor infractions, such as having a shirt untucked,¹²⁹ being tardy (late to class or to school),¹³⁰ or talking in class¹³¹ or in the hallway.¹³² While no student behavior should result in corporal punishment, it is egregious when applied for minor transgressions such as these.

As Justice Byron White observed when dissenting from a US Supreme Court decision allowing school corporal punishment, “[i]f there are some punishments that are so barbaric that they may not be imposed for the commission of crimes, designated by our social system as the most thoroughly reprehensible acts an individual can commit, then … similar punishments may not be imposed on persons for less culpable acts, such as breaches of school discipline.”¹³³

One teacher described a policy in which teachers were required to lock classroom doors when the bell rang; students who were still in the hallway were then paddled by an administrator patrolling with a paddle in hand before they could attend class.¹³⁴ A superintendent in a district that uses corporal punishment noted that the practice is particularly unpleasant if used for minor misbehavior: “I hate to think that a child gets three or five swats for being late to class, I hate to think that a child gets three or five swats for running in the hall—those are minor infractions.”¹³⁵

Despite this superintendent’s concern, Human Rights Watch received reports of corporal punishment in response to a wide range of minor misbehavior. Students were paddled for eating or drinking in class,¹³⁶ sleeping in class,¹³⁷ walking on the wrong side of the hallway,¹³⁸ running in the hallway,¹³⁹ talking back to a teacher,¹⁴⁰ not turning in homework,¹⁴¹ not having a belt in violation of the dress code,¹⁴² and going to the bathroom without permission.¹⁴³ While some kind of disciplinary response to these misbehaviors may well be warranted, corporal punishment is grossly disproportionate. Teachers and students said that minor misbehavior leads to somewhere between three and five blows.¹⁴⁴ An 18-year-old noted, “You could get a paddling for almost anything. I hated it. It was used as a way to degrade, embarrass students.”¹⁴⁵

Students in the early grades receive corporal punishment for behavior typical among young children. This is especially problematic because while young children may immediately comply with adults’ wishes, they frequently do not remember why they are being hit and will only refrain from future misbehavior if they face an imminent threat of violence.¹⁴⁶ A middle school boy in Mississippi was beaten for throwing paper balls at the teacher: “I was just trying to make the class more fun. Eventually after I threw about four or five paper balls she got really mad and sent me and my friends to the office and we got a whuppin’.”¹⁴⁷ Two kindergarteners were paddled for playing a child’s version of “footsie”: “Me and my friend, we were stepping on each other’s feet. [The teacher] called us both into the hall and … gave us three licks and sent us back into the classroom.”¹⁴⁸

In Texas, we received reports that coaches would paddle student athletes for bad grades. One 16-year-old student athlete said, “We had to show [coach] our grade sheets, we had to take it around to get it signed by all the teachers and then take it back to the coach.”¹⁴⁹

Disproportionality also arises where students or parents have the option of choosing another punishment such as suspension.¹⁵⁰ In such cases, students who refuse to be beaten typically receive a punishment that the school usually reserves for more serious infractions. A student who, for example, was tardy, and then chose to exercise his right not to be beaten, might then be suspended.¹⁵¹ According to the hierarchy of punishment established by the schools, the suspension is the more serious punishment. In effect, students are being further punished for asserting their right to be free from physical violence.

Vague Offenses and Arbitrary Use of Corporal Punishment

Students and teachers reported that students could be paddled for a catch-all category of “disrespect,” a term which is rarely defined in school policy and is used arbitrarily by teachers. In some cases, this is a category that can be checked on the school’s official discipline form when a student is referred to the principal’s office for paddling.¹⁵² One Mississippi teacher implied it can be a catch-all term used to discipline students at the teacher’s whim:

Disrespect can mean different things. Disrespect is doing something that you are told not to do. Not doing your work, talking out of turn, raising your voice to another teacher, putting your hands on another student. Breaking the rules. But it depends on a person’s definition of respect.¹⁵³

One middle schooler described punishments for “disrespect” as: “if you mess up, and don’t say ma’am or sir.”¹⁵⁴ A high school girl objected to being written up for a dress code violation, stating that she was not aware of the new rule; the teacher then wrote her up for “disrespect” instead.¹⁵⁵ Another similarly vague term for which students are sometimes paddled is “defiance of authority,” which, as a recent high school graduate in Mississippi noted, “could be anything; that phrase could mean anything. Teachers threw it around all the time.”¹⁵⁶

Corporal punishment is sometimes administered arbitrarily, with inconsistent rules, underscoring the inefficacy of the punishment.¹⁵⁷ One teacher noted that at her high school in the Mississippi Delta, the reasons for giving corporal punishment were “vague,” and that “there was never, at my school, a list of things that a kid did wrong that would result in corporal punishment.”¹⁵⁸ One former teacher noted that whether or not a child received corporal punishment “just depended on the teacher. The only school-wide rule was no food or drink in the classroom.”¹⁵⁹ A former student from Texas agreed, “Whether you get in trouble, whether you get paddled, it depends on the teachers.”¹⁶⁰ A teacher noted that she thought it was “least effective because it was a catch-all punishment.”¹⁶¹ In these situations, students are not given adequate notice or clear rules that would indicate when they will be punished.

Corporal Punishment for Serious Offenses, including Violence

Some students we spoke with were subjected to corporal punishment for more serious infractions. Fighting in particular led to corporal punishment of students in both Mississippi¹⁶² and Texas.¹⁶³ Even very young students who were caught fighting were then beaten: Human Rights Watch spoke with a student who was paddled after fighting in second grade,¹⁶⁴ and another student who was paddled after hitting another child on the head with a chair in third grade.¹⁶⁵ One student we interviewed was paddled for setting off firecrackers in school.¹⁶⁶ Students on a field trip were reportedly paddled for getting drunk.¹⁶⁷

A superintendent who is against corporal punishment nonetheless reflected a popular sentiment when he observed that corporal punishment may be “more appropriate for major infractions: gambling, aggression towards other students.”¹⁶⁸ While students who commit serious offenses need effective discipline, corporal punishment is not an acceptable answer.

Under international law, in “exceptional circumstances … dangerous behavior [may] justif[y] the use of reasonable restraint,” but that force must be the minimum amount necessary for the shortest period of time, and must never be used to punish.¹⁶⁹ Educators are confronted with the difficult task of maintaining order and ensuring a safe environment for their students, while avoiding the use of unnecessary force. Therefore, they must be trained to respond to dangerous behavior, “both to minimize the necessity to use restraint and to ensure that any methods used are safe and proportionate to the situation and do not involve the deliberate infliction of pain as a form of control.”¹⁷⁰ Educators should only use force when absolutely necessary, and should do so in compliance with the strict limits articulated in international law.¹⁷¹

Contrary to this standard, we received some reports that excessive and unnecessary force was used to control students. For instance, a Mississippi high school girl reported that when fights break out in the gym at her school, the principal and assistant principal “come up into the bleachers and put their hands on the girls and choke them, and slam them … [they put their hands] on their necks, they’ll grab them all types of ways…. The principal is the biggest man at our school and he can literally just throw down anyone.”¹⁷² Elsewhere in Mississippi, two young students, both of whom have mental disabilities, were physically pushed into closets as punishment after acting out in class.¹⁷³