Using a Restorative Justice Lens To Combat Racism at Independent Schools

Sep 25, 2020, 6:18 PM

(From the New York Times) As independent schools are pushed to evaluate their cultures and confront ongoing incidents of racism, they should look critically at their response practices, argued one independent school student in an op-ed for the New York Times. Senior Rainier Harris recounted how Regis High School, an independent Catholic school in Manhattan that offers tuition-free enrollment to all students, adjusted their response from a punitive approach to a restorative justice lens. In one case, the steps included:

Scheduling a series of assemblies and classroom discussions instead of expelling the offenders.
Setting up meetings with the parents of the student experiencing racism and checking in with that student every day.
Facilitating dialogue between the student experiencing racism and the offender.

“Restorative justice doesn’t allow an institution to simply remove the bad apples,” explained Harris. “It inspires solutions that achieve value and respect for everyone. It forces an institution to look at community-oriented solutions that make everybody uncomfortable, not just those who are involved. But it’s the only way real change can be made.”