Struggle Session by One's Peers: Restorative Justice, UMass Boston Style
Struggle Session by One's Peers: Restorative Justice, UMass Boston Style
Public shaming IS restorative justice, claims an article shared by the UMass Boston's Academic Integrity and Restorative Justice Working Group.
We are happy to announce that when UMass Boston wants to move things quickly, it does! Yes, it is a surprise for us too, considering that our campus has been a huge construction site for the past three years, still no end in sight.
Recently, we reported on the launch of the “restorative justice in academic integrity” initiative. We complained about the vagueness, and they listened! In a recent email sent to the UMass Boston community, the Restorative Justice commission laid out the guiding document for the grand new initiative complete with a lot of explanations. The email says:
Perhaps most importantly, our current processes are out of touch with our university mission. Our existing Code of Conduct is based on a strictly punitive approach, which is not only ineffective (the number of cases of academic dishonesty is increasing), but also educationally hollow. Punitive approaches aim to scare students into compliance through the threat of punishment and encourage faculty to see students who violate the Code of Conduct as morally bankrupt. A more effective approach would center academic integrity as part of our academic and campus culture.
(how is the last sentence different from the others? Only God and ChatGPT know).
The email continues to explain what restorative justice is:
With antecedents in indigenous cultures and religious communities, the restorative justice movement gained popularity in the late twentieth-century as an alternative to a punitive criminal justice model. Instead of focusing on punishing the offender, restorative justice approaches focus on repairing the harm collaboratively with the offender, victims, and community that have been impacted.
Indigenous - good. Eurocentric - bad. Community - good. Punishment - bad. We already know that. But how, exactly, can we implement the noble indigenous ideas in our classrooms, we asked? Help us, good people, at least give an example…
We asked for an example, and an example we received!
The email linked to a number of resources, and one in particular caught our eye. Far from a noble indigenous idea, it marries the Chinese struggle session and the very Anglo-centric idea of judgment by a jury of one’s peers, and the result is a true thing of beauty (pardon the antiquated and bigoted gender binary language, it’s from 2010):
Yes, you read it right. Instead of an unpleasant but private meeting in the instructor’s office, the cheating student is to be brought before the entire class, wear the dunce cap, and be subject to extreme shaming sorry, “encouragement to take responsibility” by his/her own peers. Long live restorative justice!
Sounds terrible to you? It’s just because you’re still stuck in your old-school, punitive, Eurocentric ways. Besides, the authors promised that the experience should not be one of extreme shame so they must know what they’re talking about…
Except that they contradict themselves one paragraph later and admit that it is a stressful event.
Indeed, one must admit that this is an ingenious idea, and it may actually prevent cheating if only for the deterring effect of being shamed in front of the whole class rather than just the professor.
One little problem remains, though. What about privacy laws? Aren’t we breaking like, a thousand of them? Worry not! The article already thought about it:
Laws are meant to be changed. It’s time for the great leap forward!