FEATURE
VISIONS OF TRANSFORMATIVE JUSTICE Reimagining Community Care and Accountability on Campus By Melanie Litwin
Disclaimer: The author is a member of Tufts Action for Sexual Assault Prevention’s Executive Board. Her views do not represent those of the organization.
“W
hat would it look like to respond to harm in a way that doesn’t create more trauma, more pain, more
harm?” I sit on the couch during the Tufts Women’s Center’s “Exploring Transformative Justice” event, reflecting on this question posed by community organizer Mia Mingus. She isn’t in the room with us, but rather on screen while the Barnard Center for Research on Women’s video “What is Transformative Justice?” plays. I jot down notes in my journal, wondering what would it mean to respond to harm in a different way? And what would this mean for Tufts? Harm between students is a reality that shapes the broader Tufts community. Its effects ripple out, affecting students’ feelings of safety, support, and relationships with each other. Institutional and student responses to harm similarly shape campus culture. With this in mind, conversations about transformative and restorative justice practices offer some alternatives to current justice systems on campus. Lilian Mengesha, Professor of Performance Studies and Race, Colonialism, and Diaspora, explained that restorative justice is “about restoring folks back into the com-
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munities that they come from” when harm happens. One way this can happen is by creating space for open dialogues between all affected in conflict, generally through a facilitator, while centering the harmed person. Transformative justice, on the other hand, can encompass restorative practices, but also seeks to change the very conditions that led to harm happening in the first place without generating further violence. This happens particularly through community support and accountability. Both are alternatives to the standard of punitive justice embedded in American society. Suppose someone steals someone else’s purse. A traditional punitive approach would result in some form of punishment for the “thief ”—such as jail time or a fine. A restorative justice approach might facilitate the purse being returned and an apology being given. However, transformative justice goes further and looks at why the harm happened in the first place. If the person stealing the purse has no money and no food, then those conditions will still persist even after they return the purse. Writer and activist adrienne maree brown offered this explanation of transformative justice in a video by the Barnard Center for Research on Women. In the video, brown explained, “If the original conditions were unjust, then
