In 2013, the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) published a listicle on Buzzfeed highlighting the egregious ways young people have been criminalized in American schools. Titled “Eleven Students Whose Punishments We Wish Were Made Up,” examples included “a twelve-year-old student in Texas [who] was charged with a misdemeanor for spraying herself with perfume and ‘disrupting class.’” In another case, a dropped piece of cake in the lunchroom triggered the arrest of a sixteen-year-old California student who, courtesy of a school police officer, ended up with a broken wrist.

Across the nation, eerily similar stories proliferate. Students, particularly those of color, are being pushed out of school and into the criminal legal system through excessive suspensions, expulsions, arrests, and an over-reliance on high stakes testing. Or they are slotted into special education classes — a one-way ticket to an individualized education plan.