Paul Forbes, a bias awareness and educational equity consultant, leads a workshop.

A man and his son are in a car accident. The father dies on the scene, but the child is rushed to the hospital. When he arrives, he is rushed into the operating room. The surgeon walks into the room and says, “I cannot operate on this boy, he is my son!”

How can this be?

Before you continue reading, I want you to note the immediate thoughts that are going through your mind if this is the first time that you are reading and “hearing” this riddle. What’s your answer? Did you furrow your brow as you thought, “How is that possible?” If you are familiar with the riddle, think back to the thoughts you had when you first heard it. (Note: The answer will be revealed below.)

I usually begin my “Examining Our Bias-Based Beliefs” workshop with this riddle that my mother shared with me and my siblings when we were children. I remember how confused I was, as none of us could figure it out. How was it possible that the father could die in the accident but here he was at the hospital distraught that he was not able to operate on his son and save his life?  Could it have been a case of mistaken identity and the man who died was from the other vehicle? Was the boy a foster child or adopted and the surgeon walked in and immediately realized that the boy was his biological son?

Those were some of the questions that my siblings and I asked, and those are the responses that I would often hear during my workshop sessions from participants who had never heard the riddle: “The surgeon is his grandfather” or “The boy is adopted, and the surgeon is his biological father,” etc.

I am fascinated that more than 40 years after I first heard this riddle, there are still so many people who 1) have never heard it and 2) give the wrong answer. If you are hearing the riddle for the first time, the answer is … the surgeon is his mother!

Now, if this was your initial exposure to the riddle, as you read the answer, what went through your mind? Maybe your mouth opened a little. Maybe you went back to reread the riddle to see if you had missed something in the wording. If, like some of my workshop participants, you identify as a cisgender female, you might be thinking, “I am an independent, strong woman. I am a mother. Why did I not immediately think that the surgeon could be a woman?”

While you and I have probably never met, there are a couple of assumptions I have about you: 1) you identify as a breathing, thinking human being and 2) you are a good person with good intentions.

If you are reading this article and you identify as a breathing, thinking human being, you have implicit bias and every day, every hour, every second, you are making bias-based choices and decisions. And while you are a good person with good intentions, the research tells us that good intentions are not good enough. So now you’re probably wondering, “What does all of this have to do with strategies to reduce suspensions, specifically for students of color?” I would argue that the riddle I shared is a prerequisite for understanding disproportionate suspensions for students of color and the strategies that we implement to support student behavior.

A Study on Implicit Bias

In January of 2021, I decided to leave the New York City Department of Education after spending over 23 years in various roles (school and central office-based) in the largest school system in the country. As a dean of discipline at an elementary school in East Harlem in 2000, I saw firsthand how disciplinary actions, including suspensions, disproportionately affected our boys and young men of color.

Later, as I transitioned into central office administrative roles, I participated in working groups where we would brainstorm ideas that would lead to strategies, programs, practices, and policies focused on reducing suspensions. I remember being trained in programs like Second Step, attending workshops for restorative practices, and learning about schoolwide interventions like Positive Behavioral Interventions and Supports (PBIS). I found much value in these programs and strategies, but—year after year—the suspensions would continue to rise in numbers and at higher levels of disproportionality. In September 2016, a study by the Yale Child Study Center changed the way I viewed this topic.

In the study, “Do Early Educators’ Implicit Biases Regarding Sex and Race Relate to Behavior Expectations and Recommendations of Preschool Expulsions and Suspensions?”, 135 pre–K teachers were asked to watch a six-minute video of four preschoolers: a Black boy, a white boy, a Black girl, and a white girl. The teachers were asked to press the Enter key when they saw “disruptive or bad behavior.” The researchers were not really interested in the Enter key. They had set up eye-scanning technology that allowed them to track and see where the teachers were looking for “bad behavior.” The researchers found that when looking for bad behavior, the teachers looked more at the Black children than the white children, and they looked specifically at the Black boy. In fact, 42% of the teachers identified the Black boy as the one who they felt needed the most attention.

I don’t know any of the teachers who participated in the study, but like I stated earlier, I assume that they are all good people with good intentions. They probably hold and espouse egalitarian values about treating and seeing all children the same way. The “catch” about the study was that there was no disruptive or bad behavior in the video. The video “incorporated pre-selected preschoolers engaging in traditional classroom activities.” Statistically, with four children in the video, about 25% of the teachers should have looked at the Black boy, 25% should have looked at the white boy, 25% should have looked at the Black girl, and 25% should have looked at the white girl. That did not happen, however. The association that our brain makes, just like what happened in the riddle, manifested in the study: “Bad behavior = Black boy.”

To be clear, when implemented with fidelity and intensity, programs, strategies, and interventions like PBIS and restorative practices work. Suspensions can and will decrease, but unless and until we are willing to examine and address our bias-based beliefs, we will continue to see disproportionate outcomes. It is bold and honorable that we strive to disrupt and dismantle structures and systems that are leading to inequitable outcomes. However, such striving is not enough. Ultimately, if we do not have a paradigm shift, we will create new structures and systems that are built on faulty foundations of unexamined bias-based beliefs.

To reduce suspensions, especially for our students of color, we need to do the following:

  • Look at and disaggregate the data.
  • Eliminate “zero tolerance” policies.
  • Form equity teams that will be laser-focused on having conversations about these disparities.
  • Revamp the code of conduct with input from students and staff, ensuring it allows for alternatives to suspensions.
  • Implement social-emotional learning programs, PBIS, and restorative practices.

And if we want to see substantive and systemic change, we must first be willing to do the personal introspective and reflective work of examining bias-based beliefs—what I have long called “the work behind the work.”

Paul Forbes is a bias awareness and educational equity consultant and the founder of Leading with Hearts and Minds. Learn more at leadingwithheartsandminds.com. Previously, he was the executive director of educational equity, anti-bias, and diversity for the New York City Department of Education.