Equal treatment in an unequal social and academic environment is discriminatory.

Presently, there is a lack of research in Canada and the US addressing either the short or long term implications of schools adopting discipline policies based on the concept of Zero Tolerance for violence and unwanted aggression. Nor, it seems, has there been any clear demonstration that Zero Tolerance policies effectively reduce youth violence other than by merely displacing the problem. In Scarborough, Ontario where schools reported a decline in school-based youth violence following the implementation of a Zero Tolerance policy the rates of student suspension and expulsion were correspondingly high (Although some schools may report fewer occurrences of student violence following the implementation of a Zero Tolerance policy, the violence may have merely relocated to the school periphery or to other parts of the community. It is not yet known whether the short-term reductions in school-based youth violence and unwanted aggression that result from greater numbers of students receiving suspensions and expulsions and/or serving longer suspensions and expulsions, due to a Zero Tolerance approach to managing youth behaviour, will confer a benefit to the greater community. Violence and aggression are social acts. We reinforce various forms of socially acceptable violence and aggression on a daily basis through media, public discourse, and teachings. (Zero Tolerance assumes (as do most 'get-tough' discipline policies) that there are only certain types of violent and aggressive behaviours, however, that are considered universally unacceptable; for certain cases of severe physical violence and for some forms of verbal abuse and hate-oriented crimes this may in indeed be the case. Nonetheless, Zero Tolerance does not afford students or teachers the opportunity to decide for themselves the terms and conditions defining acceptable social behaviour. Those students whose opinions differ from their school administration's perception of pro-social behaviour will likely be subjected to the consequences of a Zero Tolerance policy more often than their socially conforming peers. Zero Tolerance is an extension of the belief that the status quo and the moral majority determines which types of behaviours are inherently good, and which are not. For example, Zero Tolerance does not address culturally acceptable violence resulting from the reinforcement of hegemonic heterosexual masculinity through sport and other social and cultural constructs ,Nor does Zero Tolerance identify the subtle and insidious elements of heterosexism most often observable in systemic gender reinforcement and homophobia in schooling. School discipline policies based on the principles of Zero Tolerance reinforce Anglo-Eurocentric sensibilities of right and wrong and the authoritative structures within public education School administrations that support the tenets of Zero Tolerance claim that school discipline policies that treat all students equally regardless of their particular social context are non-discriminatory. This kind of thinking presupposes that the social contexts of interpersonal interactions are irrelevant when dealing with youth that have committed an infraction against a school code or discipline policy. It also assumes that all students are equally advantaged and have equal social and academic opportunities, and that neither a student's social status or academic standing has a significant role in his/her ability to access school resources, achieve academic success, secure social status, or gain the social and academic support of school personnel. To claim that social justice can be achieved through the implementation of a so-called unbiased Zero Tolerance school discipline policy is to believe that discriminatory practice can be eradicated by implementing policies that are blind to personal or individual social and/or cultural contexts. Equal treatment is not a precondition of equality. Equal treatment in an unequal social and academic environment is discriminatory.