The purpose of this paper is to explore the ways in which white fear governs school discipline policies and practices in Alabama. Specifically, we advance white fear as a conceptual framework through which school discipline policies implementation, interpretation, and data reporting can be understood. We focus here on the case of Alabama public schools. We define white fear as a multifaceted, insidious, and socialised construct that takes the following forms: (1) material fear; (2) embodied fear; (3) and rhetorical fear. These three types of fear work in concert to perpetuate the removal of African American children and adolescents from public school classrooms for minor and subjective offences. We describe and unpack each of these dimensions of white fear and illustrate the recursive relationship between fear and school discipline by drawing on specific evidence from Alabama's policies and practices.