SPRINGFIELD, Ill. (AP) — This school year, Illinois will become only the fifth U.S. state to ban corporal punishment in all schools.
A law signed by Governor JB Pritzker this month bans corporal punishment in private schools, while reaffirming a 30-year ban on the practice in public schools.
When the ban goes into effect in January, Illinois will join New Jersey, Iowa, Maryland and New York in banning spanking and hitting in all schools.
State Rep. Margaret Croke, a Democrat from Chicago, was inspired to take up the issue after the American Association of Pediatrics renewed calls to end the practice, saying it can boost behavioral or mental health problems and impair cognitive development. The association noted that the practice is disproportionately used on black males and students with disabilities.
“It was very simple. I don’t want any child, whether in a private or public school, to be in a situation where corporal punishment is used,” Croke said.
Croke was also concerned about the Cassville School District in southwest Missouri, which abolished corporal punishment in 2001 and reinstated it two years ago, giving parents the option to opt in. Croke wanted to send a clear message: “It will never be OK to harm or cause pain to a child.”
Much of the world shares this opinion.
The World Health Organization has described this practice as a “violation of the child’s right to physical integrity and human dignity.” In 1990, the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child enshrined the obligation to “prohibit all corporal punishment of children.”
The United States was the only one that did not abandon the convention. Americans seem to have a pragmatic attitude toward the practice, says Sarah A. Font, associate professor of sociology and public policy at Pennsylvania State University.
“Even though the research pretty consistently shows that corporal punishment does not improve children’s behavior in the long run – and can even have negative consequences – people don’t want to believe that,” Font said. “People rely on their own experience and say, ‘I experienced corporal punishment. I handled it well.’ They ignore the totality of the evidence.”
Democratic U.S. Senator Chris Murphy of Connecticut introduced a bill last year, co-sponsored by Senate Majority Leader Dick Durbin of Illinois, that would ban corporal punishment in all schools that receive federal funding. The bill was assigned to a Senate committee for a public hearing in May 2023, but it never advanced to the floor.
The U.S. Supreme Court has also rejected constitutional challenges to the practice. In 1977, when middle school students in Dade County, Florida, filed a lawsuit against corporal discipline, the court ruled that the Eighth Amendment’s protection against cruel and unusual punishment applied only to convicted criminals; it did not apply to classroom discipline.
Today, 17 states allow corporal punishment in all schools, although four states prohibit its utilize on students with disabilities. North Carolina state law does not prohibit it, but all of the state’s school districts blocked its utilize in 2018. Illinois lawmakers banned the practice in public schools in 1994.
Among the states that have banned corporal punishment entirely, New Jersey took the unusual step of banning it in all schools in 1867. Iowa abolished it in private schools in 1989. Maryland and New York will end its utilize in private schools in 2023.
Supporters of private schools, who vehemently oppose government intervention, did not oppose the fresh law.
Corporal punishment is not used in Illinois Catholic Conference schools, said Executive Director Bob Gilligan.
“It is an anachronistic practice,” he said.
Ralph Rivera, a representative of the Illinois Coalition of Nonpublic Schools, said he is not aware of any member school that uses the practice. While the group typically opposes government interference in its education, Rivera said it would be hard to oppose a ban on corporal punishment on principle.
“Even if they don’t, they told us to stay out of it because it doesn’t make a good impression to say, ‘No, we want to be allowed to beat up kids,'” Rivera said.
The law does not apply to home schooling. For students who are taught at home, the same rules apply during school hours as after school.
In the case of student athletes, disciplinary measures or corrections on the football or volleyball field would have to go too far to be considered corporal punishment, Croke explained during a plenary debate on the measure last spring.
“We talked about a situation in committee where a coach might have said, ‘Run laps,'” Croke said. “I don’t think that’s true in any way because when we tell a kid to run laps, the goal is not necessarily to inflict pain.”
However, during the debate in Parliament, Republicans also expressed concerns that the introduction of such a requirement for private schools could facilitate the introduction of regulations that affect, for example, the curriculum or religious education.
Croke, whose school-age child attends a Catholic school, said her intention was not to open the door to government regulation of private education, but rather to “protect children from danger.”
“There is a red line: hitting children should never be allowed,” Croke said.
