How schools are using restorative justice to remedy racial disparities in discipline
Too many schools today are pushing children into pipelines of incarceration and violence instead of liberation
Named a “New Civil Rights Leader of the 21st Century” by the Los Angeles Times and the founding director of Restorative Justice of Oakland Youth (RJOY), Fania E. Davis is a long-time social justice activist, civil rights trial attorney, restorative justice practitioner, and writer and scholar with a PhD in indigenous knowledge. In "The Little Book of Race and Restorative Justice," Davis examines the still-pervasive, centuries-long cycles of racial prejudice and trauma in America and their repercussions, ranging from educational inequities to mass incarceration. To inspire a positive action toward change, she highlights real restorative justice initiatives that seek to address these issues in schools, justice systems, and communities. This newest addition to the Justice and Peacebuilding series is a much needed and long overdue examination of the issue of race in America as well as a beacon of hope as we learn to work together to repair damage, change perspectives, and strive to do better.
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Education as a Liberatory Practice
From slavery times to the present, black people have treasured education as liberatory. It was unlawful for enslaved blacks to learn to read and write. When the slavemaster learned his wife was teaching young Frederick Douglass to read, he at once forbade it: “[I]f you teach . . . [him] how to read, there would be no keeping him. It would forever unfit him to be a slave.” Upon hearing these words, Douglass had an epiphany, understanding in that moment that education was “the path way from slavery to freedom” and was the most important thing he and other slaves could do to free themselves. Douglass went on to become a leader in the anti-slavery and women’s rights movements, a best-selling author, and a US diplomat.
Author and educator bell hooks continues this black tradition, exhorting educators to enact a revolutionary pedagogy of resistance that is profoundly anticolonial and anti-racist. This is education as the practice of freedom, as famed critical pedagogist Paulo Friere puts it, and it means implementing practices that both challenge curricular and pedagogical biases that reinforce systems of domination like racism and sexism while simultaneously creating innovative ways to teach diverse groups of students. Instead of creating pathways to liberation and opportunity, however, too many schools today are pushing children into pipelines of incarceration and violence.
Restorative Justice in Schools
There are growing numbers of studies establishing the effectiveness of school-based restorative justice in reducing suspensions, expulsions, and police referrals, while improving academic outcomes and decreasing violence. For instance, according to a 2015 implementation study of whole-school CONTINUE READING: How schools are using restorative justice to remedy racial disparities in discipline | Salon.com
