New research has found that rural LGBTQ+ teens experience significant challenges in their communities and turn to the internet for support.

The from Hopelab and the looked at what more than 1,200 LGBTQ+ teens faced and compared the experiences of those in rural communities with those of teens in suburban and urban communities. The research found that rural teens are more likely to give and receive support through their online communities and friends than via their in-person relationships.

鈥淭he rural young people we’re seeing were reporting having a lot less support in their homes, in their communities, and their schools,鈥� Mike Parent, a principal researcher at Hopelab, said in an interview with the Daily Yonder. 鈥淭hey weren’t doing too well in terms of feeling supported in the places they were living, though they were feeling supported online.鈥�

However, the research found that rural LGBTQ+ teens had the same sense of pride in who they were as suburban and urban teens.

鈥淭he parallel, interesting finding was that we didn’t see differences in their internal sense of pride, which you might kind of expect if they feel all less supported,鈥� he said. 鈥淲hat was surprising, in a very good way, was that indication of resilience or being able to feel a strong sense of their internal selves despite this kind of harsh environment they might be in.鈥�

Researchers recruited young people between the ages of 15 and 24 who identified as LGBTQ+ through targeted ads on social media. After surveying the respondents during August and September of last year, the researchers also followed up some of the surveys with interviews, Parent said.

According to the study, rural teens were more likely than their urban and suburban counterparts to find support online. Of the rural respondents, 56% of rural young people reported receiving support from others online several times a month compared to 51% of urban and suburban respondents, and 76% reported giving support online, compared to 70% of urban and suburban respondents.

Conversely, only 28% of rural respondents reported feeling supported by their schools, compared to 49% of urban and suburban respondents, the study found, and 13% of rural respondents felt supported by their communities, compared to 35% of urban and suburban respondents.

Rural LGBTQ+ young people are significantly more likely to suffer mental health issues because of the lack of support where they live, researchers said. Rural LGBTQ+ young people were more likely to meet the threshold for depression (57% compared to 45%), and more likely to report less flourishing than their suburban/urban counterparts (43% to 52%).

The study found that those LGBTQ+ young people who received support from those they lived with, regardless of where they live, are more likely to report flourishing (50% compared to 35%) and less likely to meet the threshold for depression (52% compared to 63%).

One respondent said the impact of lack of support impacted every aspect of their lives.

鈥淣ot being able to be who you truly are around the people that you love most or the communities that you鈥檙e in is going to make somebody depressed or give them mental issues,鈥� they said in survey interviews, according to Hopelab. 鈥淏ecause if you can鈥檛 be who you are around the people that you love most and people who surround you, you鈥檙e not gonna be able to feel the best about your well-being.鈥�

Respondents said connecting with those online communities saved their lives.

“Throughout my entire life, I have been bullied relentlessly. However, when I鈥檓 online, I find that it is easier to make friends鈥� I met my best friend through role play [games],鈥� one teen told researchers. 鈥淲ithout it, I wouldn鈥檛 be here today. So, in the long run, it鈥檚 the friendships I鈥檝e made online that have kept me alive all these years.”

Having support in rural areas, especially, can provide rural LGBTQ+ teens with a feeling of belonging, researchers said.

鈥淥ur findings highlight the urgent need for safe, affirming in-person spaces and the importance of including young people in shaping the solutions,鈥� Claudia-Santi F. Fernandes, vice president of research and evaluation at Born This Way Foundation, said in a statement. 鈥淚f we want to improve outcomes, especially for LGBTQ+ young people in rural communities, their voices鈥揳nd scientific evidence鈥搈ust guide the work.鈥�

Parent said the survey respondents stressed the importance of having safe spaces for LGBTQ+ young people to gather in their own communities.

鈥淚 think most of the participants recognize that you can’t do a lot to change your family if they’re not supportive,鈥� he said. 鈥淲hat they were saying was that finding ways for schools to be supportive and for communities to be supportive in terms of physical spaces (that allowed them) to express themselves safely (and) having places where they can gather and feel safe, uh, were really important to them.鈥�

Hopelab seeks to address mental health in young people through evidence-based innovation, according to its organizers. The Born This Way Foundation was co-founded by Lady Gaga and her mother, West Virginia native Cynthia Bisset Germanotta.

The organization is focused on ending bullying and building up communities, while using research, programming, grants, and partnerships to engage young people and connect them to mental health resources, according to the foundation鈥檚 website.

This first appeared on and is republished here under a .

The U.S. Supreme Court agreed Friday to hear an appeal from a group of Montgomery County parents challenging a school system policy that does not let them opt their lower elementary school children out of classes that use LGBTQ+ books.

After three rounds of fertility treatments, Haley Swenson and her wife, Alieza Durana, had a baby boy in March 2023. Because Swenson carried their baby and was the biological mother, only she was seen as the parent in the eyes of the law. Durana would have to adopt her own son.

That process is expensive 鈥� at least a couple thousand dollars 鈥� so they put it off as the costs of raising an infant mounted. But the day after Donald Trump was reelected, the couple felt a new urgency: Would the incoming administration strip away their rights to call themselves moms? They had to seriously consider taking extra steps to ensure their child would, legally, always be considered theirs.

Ahead of a second Trump administration that is likely to be hostile to LGBTQ+ people, queer parents across the country are calling attorneys and researching how they can protect themselves in the event that a Republican-controlled White House and Congress attempts to strip back protections for LGBTQ+ families.

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Project 2025, the 920-page document that lays out priorities for a second Trump term, envisions a federal government that uplifts families made up of a married mother and father, while . Policies focused on supporting LGBTQ+ equity 鈥渟hould be repealed and replaced by policies that support the formation of stable, married, nuclear families,鈥� the document states. The courts could also take up LGBTQ+ equity cases. When Roe v. Wade was overturned in 2022, Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas indicated the court may consider , including Obergefell v. Hodges, which secured marriage equality for LGBTQ+ couples.

鈥淚t鈥檚 unclear what they want to do, and that lack of specificity is what鈥檚 really scary if you鈥檙e a queer parent because you don鈥檛 really know how to protect yourself,鈥� Swenson said. 鈥淪o since we know there was this one thing we could do to protect ourselves, and we hadn鈥檛 done it yet, it was like, 鈥極K, there are so many unknowns 鈥� let鈥檚 at least take care of what we can.鈥�

After the election was called for Trump, Swenson and Durana gathered all their documents and typed a letter to their closest family and friends, asking them to help gather the funds to retain an attorney who would help them finalize the adoption before Trump鈥檚 inauguration at the end of January. They knew that simply being listed as a parent on a child鈥檚 birth certificate is not enough to establish legal parentage, especially for non-biological parents. Within less than a week, they had the $3,500 they needed to start the process. In late November, Swenson watched a outlining steps LGBTQ+ families could take. Many other attendees were asking about pursuing adoptions for their children.

鈥淲e are getting a lot of questions about that,鈥� said Meg York, the director of LGBTQ+ Family Law and Policy and an attorney at Family Equality, a nonprofit working to support LGBTQ+ families that helped organize the webinar. 鈥淩egardless of how your family is formed, it’s that security that’s the key concern here 鈥� without [a court judgment] your parentage might be questioned or challenged or unrecognized across state lines.鈥�

Family laws like this often vary by state, each with their own rules about what they will recognize or not.

Often, attorneys recommend that same-sex couples obtain a court order that will ensure their parent-child relationship is recognized under the 鈥渇ull faith and credit鈥� clause of the U.S. Constitution, which establishes that a court order in one state must be recognized elsewhere. Parents can obtain an adoption or a parentage order. Both are court orders recognized across states and can鈥檛 be undone if a state legislature decides to roll back protections for LGBTQ+ families.

Adoptions, which are subject to background checks and a court hearing, are an option for both unmarried and married couples and help establish that the nonbiological parent is the parent of the child. Some states may refer to it as 鈥渟econd-parent,鈥� co-parent鈥� or 鈥渟tepparent鈥� adoption. Parentage orders are similar in terms of the process and cost but differ in one sense: Couples can apply for them prior to the child鈥檚 birth, meaning those parental rights are established as soon as the child is born and there is no gap. It’s often an option for parents undergoing fertility treatments or surrogacy.

Children born to a married same-sex couple should be recognized as the parents of those children under the law, but discrimination against LGBTQ+ families has led to an uneven adoption of that standard. That’s why attorneys recommend families take additional steps.

Swenson is based in Utah, in a county where more than 70 percent of voters elected Trump to office in part because of conservative views. She knows the stakes.

鈥淭here are so many scary situations people are in where it’s going to come down to convincing a judge of your humanity,鈥� Swenson said. 鈥淵our gender and sexual identity don’t change the fact that you’re a human and a good parent. There’s just a lot of people out there who are really uncertain about what lies ahead.鈥�

In Austin, attorney Meghan Alexander used to receive maybe three calls a week about second-parent adoptions. The week after the election, she received 26. The calls and emails haven鈥檛 stopped.

鈥淭he advice is the same as it’s been for the last couple of decades, which is to do a second-parent adoption. Do not depend on the federal government or the gay right to marry to give you parental rights,鈥� Alexander said.

Alexander recommends to her clients that parents get an adoption instead of a parentage order because in Texas, for example, parentage orders for LGBTQ+ families have not been thoroughly challenged in the court system, Alexander said, while adoptions have been upheld by the courts many times.

Adoptions are a popular option because they are also more commonly understood and 鈥渦niversally recognized鈥� across states and countries, said Nancy Polikoff, professor emerita at American University Washington College of Law and an expert in LGBTQ+ family law. Still, it ultimately will depend on state laws and the parents鈥� preferences as to which avenue they pursue.

What is clear, Polikoff said, is that the incoming administration has increased concerns among LGBTQ+ families to seek out additional legal protection. She鈥檚 also been hearing from attorneys across the country who have been fielding numerous requests.

鈥淲hen we are looking at the possibility of cutting back on LGBT family recognition, states that are not inclined to recognize the legitimacy of parenting by LGBT people are going to be emboldened to deny that status whenever they can,鈥� she said.

Polikoff said she does not believe that gay marriage will be overturned in the next four years, but what may be more likely to happen is that states and courts will try to cut back on some protections LGBTQ+ people have recently secured. Parenting relationships could become easy prey.

鈥淣obody is expecting Obergefell to be overturned anytime soon,鈥� Politikoff said. 鈥淯nfortunately, I think parentage is one of those places where if a court is just not going to be as protective in a particular state, I think they are going to have more leeway to discriminate under a Trump administration.鈥�

But ensuring additional legal protections comes with a price. The process can cost in the thousands 鈥� Alexander said that in Texas it’s about $5,000 鈥� and that鈥檚 usually after a family has undergone fertility treatments.

Swenson paid about $6,000 for fertility treatments, and when her son was born, she didn鈥檛 have any access to paid leave in her contract job as a gender and family researcher. Then her wife got laid off in August. They depleted much of their savings and have been living paycheck to paycheck. Alexander, the attorney in Texas, and her wife also put theirs off because of cost. In her law practice, she tries to help families seeking an adoption by offering a sliding scale depending on their income, or a zero-interest repayment plan.

鈥淏eing a queer parent is expensive in other ways,鈥� Swenson said. 鈥淚t makes me sick to think there are people who need this done and cannot get it done.鈥�

For Swenson鈥檚 family, the process will take about six weeks, and involves a court hearing, as well as child abuse and criminal background checks. Her attorney, Lauren Barros, has told her she is very busy managing multiple cases for LGBTQ+ parents in the Salt Lake City area. The family also plan to change their last names to all match their son鈥檚: Swenson Durana.

Since their son was born, Swenson and Durana have settled into the parental reality of constantly trying to anticipate danger, but the prospect of an anti-LGBTQ+ administration at a time of rising anti-LGBTQ+ sentiment has introduced new fears. There鈥檚 the regular stuff, like worrying about how to shield their son from hazards on the playground, or figuring out when to wean him off the bottle and whether he鈥檚 eating enough. And now there are new, more existential concerns 鈥� both for them and for many queer parents.

鈥淲e are also thinking, can we always be there for him?鈥� Swelson said. 鈥淐an we ensure that no matter what happens he has his moms 鈥� forever?鈥�

This story was originally published by

鈥淎s human beings we need social support, we need reassurance, and algorithms now are taking advantage of those needs and keeping us online and engaged with content even when it doesn鈥檛 feel good,” Erickson-Schroth said in an interview with 社区黑料.

Youth suicide rates have escalated over the last decade, making it the second leading cause of death among teens and young adults. But suicide rates are starkly different among different populations, a reality brought into full view in , a nonprofit focused on youth suicide prevention. And the harms of social media 鈥� the subject of a bipartisan push to regulate tech company algorithms and a bevy of lawsuits filed by school districts and states 鈥� is just one piece of the crisis.

But Erickson-Schroth, JED鈥檚 chief medical officer, has observed one promising trend: Schools are more interested than ever, she said, in addressing students鈥� mental health needs.聽

社区黑料 caught up with Erickson-Schroth, whose work places a particular emphasis on LGTBQ+ mental health, to gain insight into the factors driving the youth suicide crisis, the conditions that put some groups of students at heightened risk and strategies that educators and policymakers can use to keep kids safe. 

The conversation has been edited for length and clarity. 

Among all youth, what are the primary factors that you see having contributed to the increase in the youth suicide rate over the last decade? 

The COVID pandemic certainly played a role. Globally, rates of childhood depression and anxiety doubled during the pandemic. In my own practice, working with LGBTQ+ young people, I could see how the pandemic was affecting them. Many young people were becoming more anxious because of the social isolation and having trouble reengaging in social situations. Many of them missed important milestones like graduation, many young people lost people in their lives.

But I don’t think it’s the whole story. Youth mental health issues and suicide rates have been increasing for the last decade at least and the COVID pandemic doesn鈥檛 explain that.

I think one of the biggest drivers is this increasing digital connection, when the internet met the phone, and we can see kind of around when that happened. If you look at studies of what percentage of Americans had smartphones at different times, in 2011 around 35% of people [had them] and now we’re up to about 85%. So almost everyone in the United States has a computer in their pocket.

That鈥檚 really different than the worlds that we grew up in in prior generations. There are a lot of positives and negatives to that. There are positives in building community and connections, especially for young people who have a hard time finding that in person.

But also it’s changed their lives completely in some negative ways. We’re constantly exposed to news, some of it really difficult news: wars around the world, climate change, racial violence, anti-LGBTQ legislation, those kinds of things. There’s cyberbullying, there are all of these chances for social comparisons, there鈥檚 this hijacking of reward systems. 

As human beings we need social support, we need reassurance, and algorithms now are taking advantage of those needs and keeping us online and engaged with content even when it doesn鈥檛 feel good. 

So all of that is adding up to a really different world that young people are living in where they’re increasingly lonely and disconnected socially.

Let鈥檚 turn to the pandemic. The data show that youth suicides reached a high in 2021 and leveled off a bit in 2022. What does this tell us about the pandemic鈥檚 effects on the youth suicide rate and how has the situation changed now that we鈥檙e no longer in lockdown? 

It鈥檚 important to say that youth suicide rates have been increasing for a long time, long before the pandemic. 

So we did see youth suicide rates rise during the pandemic. There was a study that looked at the second half of 2020, and there was a higher than expected rate of suicide for young people. It was particularly (true) among some groups, and that鈥檚 including Black youth. That likely had to deal with specific events that were occurring during the pandemic within those communities. 

Black youth disproportionately lost members of their families and communities to COVID. The pandemic also coincided with these highly publicized incidents of racial violence. So, the pandemic really did have an effect on young people, but the pandemic isn鈥檛 the whole story. 

If we鈥檙e talking about the increase from 2020 to 鈥�21 and then the decrease from 2021 to 2022, yes, based on we do see that there was an 18% drop in suicides for young people 10 to 24 and then a 9% drop for young people 15 to 24. The pandemic might have added to the numbers for 2021 and coming out of the pandemic might have improved those numbers. 

But there were a lot of other factors that were contributing. I think one is that we’re paying more attention to mental health than we were in the past. We can see it in the numbers. Large donors gave more money towards mental health in 2022 than in any other year over the past decade.

At JED, we work with schools and we鈥檙e seeing more schools interested in making mental health a priority than we鈥檝e ever seen before. 

LGBTQ+ students have long experienced higher suicide rates than their straight and cisgender peers. What do the data show about the current political climate鈥檚 effects on their well-being and suicide risk? 

There’s good research coming out of The Trevor Project. They do a survey every year that looks at LGBTQ+ young people鈥檚 experiences and one of the questions that they always ask is about how the political climate is affecting them. Based on their data, it looks like it鈥檚 affecting them quite a bit. 

Young people who are hearing about anti-LGBTQ+ legislation or movements against their rights are having a more difficult time with their mental health, which makes sense. It鈥檚 important that, in our conversations about this, we make sure that people know it鈥檚 not about someone鈥檚 gender or someone鈥檚 sexuality. That鈥檚 not the reason that they鈥檙e having mental health issues. It鈥檚 about the way that our society reacts to young people who are different. 

Black youth have experienced the fastest increase in suicide rates, with that rate nearly doubling in just the last decade. What do the data tell us about what might be at play here within the last decade in particular? 

It’s always been really hard to be a Black young person in America, so what makes the recent decade different? I think what makes it different is, again, this constant digital connection. 

The water that you swim in is this digital world and you have to spend time in this world because it gives you so many positives. It connects youth of color to other youth of color, who may be in other areas, so they can seek out community. It helps them connect with adults who are going to be supportive of them. But it also involves interacting with racist comments online, it involves seeing these really highly publicized incidents of racial violence. Young people are watching those videos and seeing what鈥檚 happening. They鈥檙e seeing movements for change, but they鈥檙e also seeing pushes back against those.

I鈥檓 curious about the rural-urban divide. Young people in rural areas are far more likely than their urban counterparts to die by suicide. What particular risk factors do rural teens face and what prevention methods might work best for them in particular?

I think young people in rural areas are in a unique position right now. There are a lot of positive benefits to living in rural areas. Young people getting out in nature and having close social ties. But at the same time, rural communities can be places where young people have less access to some of the things that they need. If they are in a particular group, there might not be as many people like them in that area.

It鈥檚 hard to connect to providers if you鈥檙e looking for mental health support because rural communities have lower rates of insurance and they have provider shortages. There鈥檚 also a lot of stigma around mental health in rural areas and it depends on the area, of course, from one place to another. 

A really important one to talk about is access to firearms. It鈥檚 really common for young people in rural areas to have access to firearms. In rural areas, young people are twice as likely to die by suicide as those in larger metro areas. And they have easier access to firearms. 

We have a lot of work to do in terms of expanding access to mental health care and making sure that young people can access mental health care in school. I was on a panel with a middle school and a high school principal and both of them were in rural areas. 

And one of the things that they talked about was that young people in rural areas may not want to seek out mental health help from a clinic or a hospital because that may put them at risk of being identified as someone who’s getting mental health care. If you park your car outside of a clinic in a rural area, everyone else in your community knows what you鈥檙e doing. If you get mental health help in school from a school counselor, that鈥檚 just a regular part of the day that lots of young people engage with.

What immediate, actionable steps can parents and educators take to help prevent this problem from getting worse?

We can talk about immediately actionable things that we know are going to make a difference in the short term and then we can talk about longer-term solutions. In the short term, one of those things is, you know, how are we going to approach firearms? 

More than half of young people who die by suicide use firearms and we know that firearms are readily accessible to many young people in their homes: 4.6 million children live in homes with at least one loaded, unlocked firearm.

How do we approach that? That鈥檚 through community work, that鈥檚 through making sure that gun owner groups, gun retailers and families are aware of the risks, that young people are turning to firearms when they鈥檙e thinking about suicide. Suicidal crises are often shortlived. Many people who attempt suicide, there鈥檚 very little time between when they first think about that suicide attempt and when they act upon it, so if we can reduce their access to lethal means in that moment, we can get them through the crisis and make sure that they have the support that they need, that they鈥檙e safe, that they have someone that they can talk to. 

So that鈥檚 one of the clearest actions we can take. 

How about policymakers? What key policy changes would you like to see, that you believe would have the largest impact on reducing young people鈥檚鈥� risk for suicide? There are a lot of ongoing legislative efforts to limit children鈥檚 access to social media as a way to improve their mental health. 

It’s really, really important that legislators and the government are involved in this issue. Number one, we have to establish a minimum set of safety standards for young people online. We have to have a regulatory commission that oversees that, we have to make sure that we have regulations for companies so that they don’t have to govern themselves.

Those kinds of things would include mandating that they collaborate with technology companies and independent research teams coming together to make sure that people outside of the companies are looking at the data ensuring that the algorithms are not negatively affecting young people’s mental health.

I think we have to take on advertising to young people. You know, what type of advertising is permitted at what ages, what the delivery looks like. We have to require that social media companies build in experts like psychologists to advocate for young people’s well-being and know what’s going on in the algorithms.

We have to make sure that we can accurately detect age, when young people are using these platforms. Those are all things that the government should be regulating. 

There are things social media companies can do, too. They should be aggressively moderating harmful content. They should be making their data available to researchers and being transparent about their algorithms, they should be building in ways for young people to control their experiences online to be able to choose the kinds of things that they’re going to see.

, the coalition expressed concerns that AI-enabled student monitoring tools could foster discrimination against marginalized groups, including LGBTQ+ youth and students with disabilities. The Education Department鈥檚 Office for Civil Rights should issue guidance on the appropriate uses of emerging classroom technologies, the lawmakers wrote, and crack down on practices that run afoul of existing federal anti-discrimination laws. 

鈥淲hile the expansion of educational technology helped facilitate remote learning that was critical to students, parents and teachers during the pandemic,鈥� the lawmakers wrote, 鈥渢hese technologies have also amplified student harms.鈥� 

Lawmakers asked the Education Department鈥檚 civil rights office whether it has received complaints alleging discrimination facilitated by education technology software and whether it has taken any enforcement action related to potential civil rights violations. 

The letter comes in response to a recent national survey of educators, parents and students, the findings of which suggest that schools鈥� use of digital tools to monitor children online have based on their race, disability, sexual orientation and gender identity. The survey, conducted by the nonprofit Center for Democracy and Technology, found that while activity monitoring has become ubiquitous in schools and is intended to keep students safe, it鈥檚 used regularly as a discipline tool and routinely brings youth into contact with the police.

Findings from the CDT survey, lawmakers wrote, 鈥渞aise serious concerns about the application of civil rights laws to schools鈥� use of these technologies.鈥� Letter signatories include Democratic Reps. Lori Trahan of Massachusetts, Sara Jacobs of California, Hank Johnson of Georgia, Bonnie Watson Coleman of New Jersey and Adam Schiff of California. Trahan, who serves on the House Energy and Commerce Committee鈥檚 Innovation, Data and Commerce Subcommittee, has previously called for tighter student data privacy protections in the ed tech sector. 

The monitoring tools, such as those offered by for-profit companies GoGuardian and Gaggle, rely on artificial intelligence to sift through students鈥� online activities and flag school administrators 鈥� and sometimes the police 鈥� when they discover materials related to sex, drugs, violence or self-harm. 

Two-thirds of teachers reported that a student at their school was disciplined as a result of activity monitoring and a third said they know a student who was contacted by the police because of an alert generated by the software. 

Children with disabilities were more likely than their peers to report being watched, and special education teachers reported heightened rates of discipline as a result of activity monitoring. The findings, researchers argue, that entitle children with disabilities equal access to an education. Even beyond the technologies, students with disabilities are subjected to disproportionate levels of school discipline, including restraint and seclusion, when compared to their general education peers. 

Half of all students said their schools responded fairly to alerts generated by monitoring software, a sentiment shared by just 36% of LGBTQ+ youth. In fact, LGBTQ+ youth were more likely than their straight and cisgender peers to report that they or someone they know was disciplined as a result of monitoring. And nearly a third of LGBTQ+ youth reported that they or someone they know was outed because of the technology. 

More than a third of teachers said their school monitors students鈥� online behaviors outside of school hours 鈥� and sometimes on their personal devices. 

In a similar student survey, released this month by the American Civil Liberties Union, a majority of respondents expressed worries that the monitoring tools 鈥� despite being designed to keep them safe 鈥� could actually cause harm and a third said they 鈥渁lways feel鈥� like they鈥檙e being watched. 

社区黑料 has reported extensively on schools鈥� use of digital surveillance tools to monitor students鈥� online behaviors, and the tools鈥� implications for youth civil rights. The company Gaggle previously flagged to administrators student communications that referenced LGBTQ+ keywords like 鈥済ay鈥� and 鈥渓esbian.鈥� The company says it halted the practice last year in the wake of pushback from civil rights activists. 

Given the survey findings, the lawmakers urged the Education Department to clarify 鈥渉ow educators can fulfill their civil rights obligations鈥� as they develop policies related to artificial intelligence, whose rapidly evolving role in education more broadly 鈥� including students鈥� use of tools like ChatGPT 鈥� has become a topic of debate. 

鈥淭his research is particularly concerning due to linkages between school disciplinary policies and incarceration rates of our nation鈥檚 youth,鈥� the coalition wrote, adding concerns that the tools can create hostile learning environments.