Invisible Victims: Black Girls Within the School-to-Prison Pipeline Narrative. Refashioning Policy Through A Black, Queer, Feminist Lens

This research uses Critical Race Feminism to explore the erasure of Black girls in the rhetoric surrounding the school-to-prison pipeline. By critically analyzing former President Barack Obama's My Brother's Keeper Initiative, this paper uncovers the gendered biases policy initiatives have towards Black boys when seeking to remedy the deep-rooted history of policing and incarceration in the K-12 education system. Upon identifying the gendered bias in policy solutions, this research decenters the experiences of Black boys and adopts Black gender-inclusive solutions that better acknowledge and serve the unique needs and experiences of Black girls. Further, new pathways are highlighted that prioritize more societally impacted groups within the Black community in an effort to show how policy initiatives can effectively neutralize the harm Black girls incur in the pipeline. Through a Black Queer Feminist lens, I challenge both academic and non-academic narratives regarding the pipeline by refashioning My Brother's Keeper to be (1) race and gender-responsive, (2) trauma-informed, and (3) evidence-based. Ultimately, I argue that a more intersectional approach should be utilized to understand the lived experiences of Black school-aged girls and dismantle the school-to-prison pipeline in its entirety.