A/HRC/11/36/Add.3 page 19 Schools as an entry point to the criminal justice system 60. Many NGOs used the metaphor of the “school to prison pipeline” to refer to the failure of the school system to educate pupils adequately, serving rather as a conduit to juvenile and criminal justice.39 Among the chief causes of this phenomenon, interlocutors referred to the widespread application of Zero Tolerance Policies, which call for severe punishment for minor infractions. These measures are considered to have gone beyond reasonable policies to prevent violence in school, leading to what is considered to be an overreliance on disciplinary methods (e.g. suspensions and expulsions) and the criminalization of school misbehaviour (i.e. by referring students with non-violent behaviour to juvenile courts). In Texas, for example, “disruptive behaviour” corresponds to 17 percent of school arrests and “disorderly conduct” comprised 26 percent of such arrests.40 In meetings with parents of students that were disciplined, the Special Rapporteur was informed of several practices that exist in some school districts, such as the issuing of fines by the police to students with inappropriate behaviour, regular searches and reported cases of excessive use of force by police officers inside schools. Civil society pointed to racial disparities in the application of these disciplinary measures. For example, whereas African-American children represent only 17 percent of public school enrolment, they constitute 32 percent of out-of-school suspensions.41 Some studies have also indicated that African-American students are more likely than white students to be suspended, expelled or arrested for the same kind of school conduct.42 D. Housing 61. Concerns about fair housing expressed by civil society generally focus on two major issues: direct discriminatory practices and structural factors that have an impact, even if unintended, on the housing situation of minorities. 62. According to interlocutors, direct discriminatory practices in housing continue to exist. Data produced in paired testing, which allows for a comparison of treatment between whites and persons of color when they have similar qualifications, identified subtle forms of direct discrimination. This includes the practice of “steering” members of racial or ethnic groups towards neighbourhoods primarily occupied by those same groups, prohibited under the Fair 39 See, for example, NAACP Legal Defense Fund, Dismantling the school-to-prison pipeline, available at http://www.naacpldf.org/content/pdf/pipeline/Dismantling_the_School_to_Prison_ Pipeline.pdf; Advancement Project and The Civil Rights Project at Harvard University, Opportunities Suspended: The Devastating Consequences of Zero Tolerance and School Discipline Policies, p. 6, available at http://www.advancementproject.org/reports/opsusp.pdf and ACLU, Race and Ethnicity in America, p. 146. 40 ACLU, Race and Ethnicity in America, p. 149. 41 Advancement Project and The Civil Rights Project at Harvard University, Opportunities Suspended, p. 6. 42 NAACP Legal Defense Fund, Dismantling the school-to-prison pipeline, p. 7.