Pushout

The Criminalization of Black Girls in Schools (Revised and Updated)

Monique Couvson

• Publisher: The New Press
• Year: 2026
• eBook ISBN:
  9798893850949
• Topic: Education
• Subtopic: Inclusive Education

The “powerful” (Michelle Alexander) exploration of the harsh and harmful experiences confronting Black girls in schools, revised and updated for its tenth anniversary

On the day fifteen-year-old Diamond from the Bay Area stopped going to school she was expelled for lashing out at peers who constantly harassed and teased her for something everyone on the staff had missed: she was being trafficked for sex. After months on the run, she was arrested and sent to a detention center for violating a court order to attend school. A decade later, Black girls continue to be the fastest growing population in the juvenile justice system.

On the tenth anniversary of its publication, Pushout, Monique Couvson’s groundbreaking book, hailed by educator Lisa Delpit as “imperative reading,” remains as urgent and necessary as ever. Couvson chronicles the experiences of Black girls across the country whose complex lives are misunderstood, highly judged—by teachers, administrators, and the justice system—and degraded by the very institutions charged with helping them flourish. Painting “a chilling picture of the plight of Black girls and women today” (The Atlantic), Couvson exposes a world of confined potential, and supports the rising movement to challenge the policies, practices, and cultural illiteracy that push countless students out of school and into unhealthy, unstable, and often unsafe futures.

This tenth-anniversary edition is truly a book “for everyone who cares about children” (The Washington Post), serving as both a call to action and a testament to the lives and futures we must protect.

Table of contents

• Cover
• About the Author
• Also by Monique Couvson
• Title Page
• Dedication
• Contents
• Preface to the 2026 Edition
• Foreword by Mankaprr Conteh and Melissa Harris-Perry
• Introduction
• 1. Struggling to Survive
• 2. A Blues for Black Girls When the “Attitude” Is Enuf
• 3. Jezebel in the Classroom
• 4. Learning on Lockdown
• 5. Repairing Relationships, Rebuilding Connections
• Epilogue
• Afterword
• Appendix A: Girls, We Got You!
• Appendix B: Alternatives to Punishment
• Methodology
• Acknowledgments
• Notes
• Copyright