The disproportionate disciplinary actions imposed on African American male students in the public school system deny them educational instruction time and increased the risk for juvenile delinquency. The purpose of this qualitative interpretive descriptive study was to examine the implementation of discipline practice employed with African American male students in Tennessee's middle schools. The Critical Race Theory provided the theoretical framework for the study. The three central research questions were designed to examine teachers' beliefs toward school disciplinary policies and practices, identify how teachers encouraged and promoted the academic success of the African American male students, and finally strategies to address cultural aware-ness differences and diversity in public schools. Interviews were conducted with 15 public middle school teachers in Tennessee. NVivo 12 was used to manually code the initial and secondary data analysis of the data collected. Findings indicated that middle schools represented did not have inclusive hiring practices in place. Further indications included mixed opinions about school disciplinary policies being fair to all students and while being disproportionately administered to African American male students. Additional findings demonstrated teachers' concerns about zero-tolerance policies that were harmful to the student. Other findings included how some teachers appeared to be surprised at the success levels of some African American male students. As a result of implementing recognition programs, incentive programs and positive reinforcement, tutoring programs, test-taking skill development, mentoring programs, school- non-profit organization partnerships, referrals to the school counselor, school clubs, and after-school programs were just a few techniques to improve the African American male student success. Findings suggest that recruitment strategies and partnerships with local universities should be used to identify a teacher population that represents the ethnicity and race of the student population. The lack of pre-service or professional cultural diversity training was also a finding indicated by the teachers interviewed. A finding resulted in the need for cultural awareness programs should: (a) be relevant to the school's student racial/ethnic population composition; (b) incorporate the use of external resources; (c) involve school-community partnerships; (d) include hiring more male teachers; (e) coordinate cultural fairs; and (f) be mandatory. [The dissertation citations contained here are published with the permission of ProQuest LLC. Further reproduction is prohibited without permission. Copies of dissertations may be obtained by Telephone (800) 1-800-521-0600. Web page: http://www.proquest.com/en-US/products/dissertations/individuals.shtml.]