DYSAETHESIA AETHIOPICA

The analysis, which reviewed data at the state and district levels, found that in 10 states, including California, Connecticut, Delaware and Illinois, more than a quarter of black students with disabilities were suspended in 2009-10. In Illinois, the rate was close to 42 percent, compared with about 8 percent for white students. New York and Florida were not included because of problems with their data.

“That’s a very disturbing pattern because kids with disabilities are supposed to be getting additional supports and counseling,” said Daniel J. Losen, senior education law and policy associate with the U.C.L.A. Civil Rights Project and an author of the report. “Kids with disabilities make up a very large proportion of the kids who are in the juvenile justice system, so it’s a very, very disturbing finding.”

In some districts, black male students with disabilities were suspended at a strikingly high rate. In Henrico County Public Schools in Virginia, for example, the report’s authors found that close to 92 percent of all black males with disabilities had been suspended one or more times during 2009-10, compared with just over 44 percent of white males with disabilities. In Memphis, a majority black district, nearly 53 percent of all black males with disabilities were suspended that year.