African-American students are suspended at far higher rates than their Caucasian peers, according to the U.S. Department of Education. Black boys are about three times more likely to be suspended, while black girls are suspended six times more frequently than their white classmates. That, some say, is a big deal, because kids who are suspended also tend to drop out, which impacts their employability later.

Kimberlé Williams Crenshaw, the executive director of the African-American Policy Forum, says girls may be falling victim to two separate stereotypes: gender and race.

“Girls tend to be disciplined when they do things that are non-normatively feminine, such as when they get into beef with each other,” she says. At the same time, “blacks tend to be seen as threatening, because (by nature) people assume they’re more aggressive…Take those two together in the form of black female body, and you have double vulnerability.” (USA Today)