According to CNN, Austin said Meridian is not the only location in the country operating such a system, but is the only one to date where local authorities have not been fully cooperative with federal investigators.
In March, a survey by the Education Department’s Office for Civil Rights found that black students are more than three-and-a-half times as likely as white students to be suspended or expelled, and more than 70 percent of students arrested in school or handed over to law enforcement are black or Hispanic.
Many experts have attributed the school-to-prison pipeline to zero-tolerance policies — a holdover from the war on drugs — that punish all major and minor rule infractions equally, bringing police disproportionately into high-minority schools.
Article Appeared @http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/10/25/federal-civil-rights-lawy_n_2018947.html#slide=949100