Students of Color in Higher Education: Exploring Police Brutality and Academic Retention

Few studies have examined whether exposure to police brutality, vicarious or personal, impacts retention of Black and Students of Color in academic spaces which they already struggle in (U.S. Department of Education, 2018; Weir, 2013). The purpose of this research was to explore this intersection and hypothesized that student retention is negatively correlated to any experience with police brutality. A study which focused on specific students and perception of police misconduct (Sethuraju, Sole, Oliver, & Prew, 2019) used a survey tool which was adapted for use in the present study. Using social media, participants ages 18-64 who are or have been enrolled at an Institution of Higher Learning (IHL) at least one day since 2014 (post-Black Lives Matter) were recruited to take an anonymous online survey hosted on Qualtrics software. Data was analyzed using SPSS to investigate for any correlation(s) through an ANOVA test. No significant relationship was found between police brutality and student retention based on this sample of 46 people. Findings prompt social workers to continue investigating how to improve trauma informed care in educational settings, with law enforcement, and continue to carve the path for future research related to both police brutality and lack of retention of Students of Color in IHLs.