A three-part study of why disproportionate numbers of black and male high school students are expelled or suspended examines student and school characteristics and teacher attitudes. This part of the report looks at school characteristics. In eleven high schools in two large, urban, midwestern school districts, researchers used interviews, student records, questionnaire surveys, and state education department statistics to gather data for each school on means of student transportation, family backgrounds, and college plans as well as on their perceptions or attitudes concerning control over self-destiny, dislike of school, fairness of punishments, administrators' power, students' and parents' power, school climate, interracial relations and friendships, administrator support for desegregation, and white predominance in school activities. Analysis showed that, at schools with large disproportions of black suspensions or expulsions, students were less satisfied with school climate, had less interracial interaction and fewer interracial friendships, and perceived more white predominance in school. Schools in which students perceived administrators as supporting desegregation had lower levels of disproportionality, prompting the authors to emphasize that strong institutional support is a key factor in effective school integration. (Author/RW)