Unintended Consequence? More Like Obvious Consequence
I was the homeroom teacher in an incident in a school that tried to implement just this criteria [racial quotas] for discipline. One kid (scrawny 7th grader) had the {bleep} beaten out of him by a 6-foot, fully-muscled 7th grader – two different races. The little kid was suspended before his copious blood had been cleaned up off the floor. The big kid never did have ANY punishment – that particular ethnic group had been disciplined too many times.
Need I mention that it was a tough month, as word quickly spread that violence against the “under-disciplined” ethnic group was treated as a freebie?
Other unintended consequences:
1. children of all races end up enduring more violence (the stress of feared violence is damaging already to health and learning)
2. extra-tolerance violators are unprepared for real life:
a. they more likely run afoul of the grown-up justice system (which is likely biased in the *opposite* direction)
b. they must quickly learn, as an adult, how to persevere diplomatically (or at least passive-aggressively) against the thousand tiny cuts to ego and autonomy that are the due of a white-collar job.
Surely some individuals will be helped by extra tolerance, always (they’re allowed to stay on the college-prep track in spite of their youthful indiscretions, and grow up and out of their childhood cruelties). But if we want more tolerance for violent or threatening behavior by schoolchildren, let’s have it while staying true to the principle of equal protection of the laws.