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Although officials from the local Modesto school district ruled the scuffle "mutual," the white classmate received a three-day suspension while Russell was sent home for a little more than a month and later expelled from his school and assigned to one farther from where he lives.

This is exceedingly common in schools. We simply use a 'ladder' of consequences. If boy #1 has been in 3 fights, has been suspended twice, and has had several detentions for tardiness, he's getting really close to expulsion procedures. If boy #2 has had one detention for not doing his homework, then he's nowhere near expulsion procedures. Race has nothing to do with it. It's simply the past behavior that is relevant.

This should be an easy lawsuit to close... depending on the racial composition of the judge and jury.

Actual example: two girls walked into my class 5 minutes late in mid-May. One girl gets a verbal warning, because she has never been late. The other girl was suspended for 3 days, because she had been through the list of consequences: Verbal warning, written warning, lunch detention, phone call home, after-school detention (3, actually), and a one-day suspension (these were for a variety of offenses, but mostly tardiness). This was unequal treatment for the same offense, but the two girls were punished according to the progression of consequences that is published (and signed by parent and student) in every student handbook.

Re your post 343 -...We simply use a 'ladder' of consequences...

Thanks for your post, Teacher317, and what you describe is what I have seen most often. I am wondering who at the NAACP told this kid's father a legitimate legal claim, and why.