BC prof applauds Dal’s restorative justice approach
Posted Mar 11, 2015 04:27:26 PM.
This article is more than 5 years old.
HALIFAX – Dalhousie University’s use of restorative justice to deal with misogynistic Facebook posts is being called a game-changer by a leading expert in the field.
Brenda Morrison of the Centre for Restorative Justice at Simon Fraser University commends the school’s administration for taking action that went against the public outcry for conventional disciplinary measures.
Morrison says there is lots of research supporting restorative justice programs at the grade school level in the United States, but it hasn’t made it to the university level.
She says other universities will eventually use the Dalhousie case as a benchmark.
But a professor of gender and women’s studies at Dalhousie says the process doesn’t address different levels of culpability.
Jacqueline Warwick says she would have liked to have seen a formal investigation before a restorative justice process was launched.
The school suspended 13 fourth-year male students about two months ago for allegedly participating in a Facebook page that contained sexually violent content about female classmates.
