The Laying on of Hands: Anti-Black and Anti-Gender-Expansive Biases in Public Perceptions of School Personnel Performance Ratings

Today, public perceptions of police performance become increasingly significant to reform in America. Thus, this study explores public perceptions of school discipline practices, including the use of force and restraint. The study is an online survey experiment that explores public implicit biases in a vignette that manipulates race and gender. Findings suggest that the average participant viewed (a) the student as more of a threat, (b) the school personnel performance as more appropriate, and (c) the incident as less prejudiced when the student in the hypothetical situation was Black American and gender expansive than when the student was White American and cisgender girl.