In October 2021, a South Carolina judge ruled in favor of students who asserted that criminal statutes using broad and subjective language such as "disorderly conduct" and "disturbing schools" were unconstitutionally vague as applied to elementary and secondary school students, and put students at risk of arrest and criminal misdemeanor charges for minor infractions. The court found that the laws failed to clarify the prohibited student conduct and allowed subjective, arbitrary standards for enforcement. While this ruling dealt with criminal statutes targeting youth for minor offenses, it provides a powerful argument against school discipline policies and codes of student conduct that use similarly vague language.
Child Trends has analyzed each state's policies around school discipline and found that nearly all states rely on vague or arbitrary language to define student conduct and consequences. This brief summarizes our analytical approach and reviews our three main findings. We conclude with a discussion of how the South Carolina court's legal analysis—which focuses on the lack of clarity to students, and the lack of an enforcement standard—illustrates steps to improve state school discipline statutes that suffer from similar issues.