News in Brief: A Washington Roundup

The U.S. Commission on Civil Rights plans to examine further whether so-called zero-tolerance discipline policies in schools are discriminating against minority and disabled students.

Commissioners came to that decision at a Feb. 18 hearing in which a Department of Education official provided recent data showing some disparities in student-suspension rates, especially for blacks. According to the 1997 data, African-Americans constituted about 17 percent of all students enrolled in public schools, but 32 percent of all...