1. Jacqueline Roebuck Sakho, Ed.D
Monday, December 1, 2014
Discipline Disparity, Restorative Justice & Schools
The problem of how race is involved with the ways in which the practices of
suspensions and expulsions are enacted in PreK-12 school settings has become a US
Department of Justice imperative; as most school districts in the country stand in
violation of the civil rights of its students.
Speaking contextually from urban centers inclusive of schools and community
and the issue of discipline disparity it seems to me that at best, we are witnessing the
potentiality of a tipping point and at least, a ripe opportunity of interests to converge.
Some argue that the organization of education is in the throws of processes that could
dismantle how we have come to know and understand the system of public education,
specifically urban schools (Alexander, 2012; Darling-Hammond, 2010; Giroux, 1984;
Giroux, 1999; Ladson-Billings, 2012). I agree that progress is unfolding.
For example, it is judicially progressive, Attorney General Eric Holder (now
former) affirming a continued commitment of the “unprecendented” joint efforts of the
US Department of Justice (DOJ) and the US Department of Education (DOE) in
reforming counterproductive disciplinary policies – and disrupting the so-called “school-to-
prison pipeline” (Holder, 2014). It is also moving in the interest of the marginalized
that the Discipline Disparities Research-to-Practice Collaborative (an academy,
community, schools joint effort) named the problem, released interdisciplinary data to
support discipline disparity as a grave matter of social injustice, and issued implications
and recommendations from the data. The matter of race/racism was implied with
enacting discipline practices and as a recommendation, implementing restorative justice
processes as an alternative to current discipline practices in PreK-12 public schools was
recommended – call being answered by several school districts across the country.

2. Jacqueline Roebuck Sakho, Ed.D
Monday, December 1, 2014
Discipline Disparity, Restorative Justice & Schools
However, we must consider the thick and deeply rooted relationship between race/racism
and racialized practices and the organization of education as we are thinking about the
marrying of PreK-12 public education practice, pedagogy and policy with the ideologies
and processes of Restorative Justice. I posit the following question for the organization
of education and the care-givers of the restorative justice movement1 to examine
critically. How might we avoid the reoccurrence of “race-conscious education policies
that fail to account for race and racism…still advantag[ing] the dominant group and
continu[ing] to disadvantage the group that such remedies [are] designed to serve”
(Douglass Horsford, 2010, p. 294)?
The Losen & Gillispie (2012) report published through the Center for Civil Rights
Remedies at UCLA revealed that from the 2006-2007 to the 2009-2010 school year
African American students rate of suspension increased from 15% to 17%. The newest
data stirred a fiery mobilization of nationally recognized community-based organizations,
Children’s Defense Fund, Dignity in Schools Campaign, PowerU Center for Social
Change and many others organizing communities to push for change in exclusionary
discipline practices (Shah, 2012; Templeton & Dohrn, 2010). However the mobilization
of federal civil rights attorneys to file a lawsuit against both the school district in
Meridian, MS, and the state of Mississippi for violating the civil rights of its students
through racially disparate exclusionary discipline practices is the action that makes for a
ripe opportunity to converge interests. However, it is the “Dear Colleague Letter” issued
to K-12 nationally from the Civil Rights Division of the US Department of Justice and
1 See: Dana Greene (2013) Repeat performance: is restorative justice another good
reform gone bad?, Contemporary Justice Review: Issues in Criminal, Social, and Restorative Justice,
16:3, 359-390, DOI: 10.1080/10282580.2013.828912

3. Jacqueline Roebuck Sakho, Ed.D
Monday, December 1, 2014
Discipline Disparity, Restorative Justice & Schools
the Office of Civil Rights of the US Department of Education warns of implicit racism
embedded in the practices of exclusionary disciplinary practices and of the
“unlawfulness” of the practices. The following is quoted from the DOJ, DOE letter:
“The administration of student discipline can result in unlawful
discrimination based on race in two ways: first, if a student is subjected to
different treatment based on the student’s race, and second, if a policy is
neutral on its face—meaning that the policy itself does not mention race—
and is administered in an evenhanded manner but has a disparate impact,
i.e., a disproportionate and unjustified effect on students of a particular
race” (Holder, 2014).
The potential legal disruption to the system of education is also triggering
variations of leadership decentralization on a continuum. Some Education leaders are
taking action out of necessity/policy directives to respond to discipline disparities. While
other educational leaders are engaging in emancipated leadership (Solorzano & Yosso,
2002; Giroux, 1992) to mobilize with community organizers and parents. Templeton &
Dohrn (2010) found educational leaders in the latter context to be representative of
“activists-turned-educators” (p. 431).
Restorative Justice, Discipline Disparities & Urban Communities
What could these interests mean for the practice of restorative justice? How might
restorative justice participate in convergence?

4. Jacqueline Roebuck Sakho, Ed.D
Monday, December 1, 2014
Discipline Disparity, Restorative Justice & Schools
Critically evaluating restorative justices approaches as responses to discipline
disparity informed by race/racism in urban schools requires that we explore the utilization
of restorative justice processes as tools to listen not only to the voices of those directly
involved with the harm caused (the traditional approach) but also, listening for the voice
of the system to discover ways toward continuous and sustainable improvement2. We are
learning that this level of listening requires situating the system – in this case, the
organization of education and the system of discipline practices – as relevant participants
in the process. We must find ways to develop rich thick descriptions and appreciate these
system, name its’ perspectives, and discover how to enter and how to gain a shared voice
of improvement. Engaging and interrogating the dominant narratives of systems is not
unlike how we engage participants in dialogic process. As we listen and receive, we go
deeper by drilling down into the discoveries and unearthing deeper inquiry.
I believe as Restorative Justice practitioners working in urban centers3 we have an
opportunity to discover (a) how community leaders are making sense of conflict in
schools, (b) how community leaders are engaging in activities that are mimetic of how
we identify and define RJ, (c) what new ways might RJ practitioners introduce and
2 See: Jones, H. T. (2013) Restorative Justice in School Communities: Successes,
Obstacles, and Areas for Improvement
3 See: School-based Restorative Justice as an Alternative to Zero-Tolerance Polices:
Lessons Learned from West Oakland. A report from the evaluation of a restorative
justice program at Cole Middle School in West Oakland by The Henderson Center for
Social Justice at Berkeley Law School.
http://www.law.berkeley.edu/files/11-2010_School-based_
Restorative_Justice_As_an_Alternative_to_Zero-Tolerance_Policies.pdf

5. Jacqueline Roebuck Sakho, Ed.D
Monday, December 1, 2014
Discipline Disparity, Restorative Justice & Schools
engage RJ approaches in urban communities and, (d) what have we been missing in our
practice.

6. Jacqueline Roebuck Sakho, Ed.D
Monday, December 1, 2014
Discipline Disparity, Restorative Justice & Schools
References
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colorblindness. New York: The New Press.
Darling-Hammond, L. (2010). The flat world and education. Teachers College Press.
Department of Justice, Office of Public Affairs. (2012, October 24). Justice News.
Retrieved October 26, 2012, from The United States Department of Justice:
http://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/2012/October/12-crt-1281.html
Giroux, H. (1992). Educational leadership and the crisis of democratic culture. University
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Giroux, H. (1984). Public philosophy and the crisis in education. Harvard Educational
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Giroux, H. (1999). Schools for sale: Public education, corporate culture and the citizen
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Horsford, S. D. (2010). Mixed feelings about mixed schools: Superintendents on the
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Ladson-Billings, G. (2012). Through a glass darkly: The persistance of race in education
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Losen, D., & Gillespie, J. (2012). Opportunities suspended: The disparate impact of
disciplinary exclusion from school. The Center for Civil Rights Remedies at UCLA. Los
Angeles: The Civil Rights Project.
Shah, N. (2012, August 12). News & Updates. Retrieved October 26, 2012, from NoVo
Foundation: http://novofoundation.org/newsfromthefield/groups-ask-districts-to-stop-using-
out-of-school-suspensions/
Solorzano, D., & Yosso, T. (2002). Critical race methodology: Counter-storytelling as an
analytical framework for education research. Qualitative Inquiry , 8 (23), 23-44.