Free Republic

Parents claim two southern California high school students were suspended and required to undergo "restorative justice" discipline after "misgendering" a teacher. The incident allegedly occurred in the Glendale Unified School District (GUSD) last spring. GUSD Parents Voices, a group largely comprised of Glendale parents and residents, shared a photo of an email allegedly referencing the incident on Twitter. The email was seemingly sent by a GUSD administrator, who stated that she "suspended two students for five days" after "misgendering" a teacher. When Crisis in the Classroom (CITC) reached out to GUSD to confirm the authenticity of the email, a district...

SARATOGA SPRINGS, NY (WRGB) — A Saratoga Springs city council adjourning early once again. This time, due to outrage over comments by the city’s Public Safety Commissioner, Jim Montagnino, surrounding a Restorative Justice resolution being voted on. This resolution acknowledges and apologizes for the city’s past racial injustices and, also, creates a Restorative Justice panel tasked with looking at the city’s race relations and what can be done to improve that. BLM made it clear to council members that restorative justice to them comes with dropping the charges against the three individuals charged.

SAINT PAUL, Minn. (CITC) — Minnesota is the latest state to join a growing national trend of public schools with zero students meeting grade level in mathematics, and its two largest cities are accounting for the bulk of the declines. Minnesota-based think tank The Center of the American Experiment (CAE) conducted an analysis of state test scores from the 2021-22 academic year. Traditional public schools, online public schools and charter schools were all evaluated to determine where students are struggling to recover from pandemic-related learning losses. CAE's findings concluded that while declines were evident statewide, two of Minnesota's largest public...

Three-time rape survivor Ashley Judd has revealed that she sat down with one of the men who raped her to have a 'restorative-justice conversation', detailing how she tracked down her attacker and ended up 'sitting in rocking chairs by a creek' with him. Several years after she was raped and assaulted in 1999, the actress, 54, said that she 'tried to find' her attacker, explaining that he 'surfaced very easily', allowing her to arrange a meeting with him. Speaking on the Healing with David Kessler podcast, Ashley said: 'To make a long story short, we ended up in rocking chairs...

Kiddie criminals in Los Angeles accused of serious crimes are set to get a pass under new rules from District Attorney George Gascon. The Los Angeles County District Attorney will expand its “restorative justice” diversion programs for youths to include those facing charges like burglary, arson, robber and even sexual battery, among other crimes, according to a leaked memo from the DA’s office. Diversion programs are a form of pre-trial intervention which allows alleged juveniles to avoid prosecution, conviction — and serious jail time — in favor of more rehabilitative approaches. The DA’s office launched a pilot for the Restorative...

Buffalo Public Schools (BPS) in Erie County, New York, found itself the subject of national headlines this week for its work incorporating anti-racist principles into its curriculum. ...The curriculum has received pushback from the right along with accusations that its teachings are "anti-white" and inappropriate for school... ...Dr. Fatima Morrell, BPS' associate superintendent for Culturally and Linguistically Responsive Initiatives, led the charge for the incorporation of BLM-based curricula for grades K-12 for the 2020-2021 school year. It is derived from the organization Black Lives Matter at School, an educator-driven movement advocating for racial justice in education. Its guiding principles include...

Violent crimes cases across Boulder County surged from 2013 to 2018, a trend that corresponds with a rising number of felony case filing across the state. According to Boulder County District Attorney Michael Dougherty, state felony case filings spiked nearly 45% in five years. In Boulder County, the majority of new felony case filings were for violent crimes, which saw a 32% increase from 2013 to 2018. ... Violent crimes include cases that involve assault, robbery, vehicular homicide, crimes against at-risk individuals, bias-motivated crimes, murder, attempted murder and stalking. In Boulder County, Dougherty said domestic violence is the county’s most...

The Pi Day of the century, 3.14/15 is only a little over a week away. For a time now Pi Day has been all about fun and of course pie, but with the way in recent years, science and even reality itself have come more and more under attack, I’m thinking maybe this year it’s time for Pi Day to emerge as something more than just fun. For so much of our history, the people of our country and the world have benefited greatly from the science-based reality that has shaped America’s future. Science may be based on numbers, but...

WASHINGTON, D.C. – The Department of Justice’s National Institute of Justice recently promised a whopping $63 million to investigate school safety programs and to reward districts for implementing “restorative justice” and other related school discipline programs. According to an October 1st statement from Attorney General Eric Holder, “This funding is being awarded as part of the Comprehensive School Safety Initiative – a large-scale, multi-agency research effort to build practical, and scientifically-sound, knowledge about effective ways to increase school safety nationwide.” However, according to a review of past and current restorative justice initiatives in schools, the funding appears to be just...

A Seattle police officer, writing in his union newspaper, disparages the anti-bias training the city employees are required to take, and calls city leaders a "quaint socialist cabal." Under the headline, "Just Shut Up and Be a Good Little Socialist," Officer Steve Pomper calls the city's 5-year-old Race and Social Justice Initiative an attack on American values and calls its supporters "the enemy." He expresses contempt for a "Perspectives in Profiling" class that department members were required to take last year to raise awareness about racial profiling, and he questions at what point he and other officers should say "Hell...

In July Jennifer Hawke-Petit, 48, and daughters, Hayley, 17, and Michaela, 11, were sexually abused and brutally murdered by parolees Joshua Komisarjevsky and Steven Hayes, who now face the death penalty. The Hawke-Petit family – including husband and father William, who survived the attack – were members of the United Methodist Church in Cheshire, CT, a liberal activist church "where parishioners take to the pulpit to discuss poverty in El Salvador and refugees living in Meriden," reports The New York Times. The church has been led by three pastors in a row who oppose capital punishment in favor of "restorative...

The restrictions are so tough that they are going to backfire by causing people not to report and re-register with their probation officers. ATLANTA, GA — Lori Collins searched lonely stretches of country roads and scoured industrial lots for a place she could live as a registered sex offender. After weeks of looking, she finally found a house 35 miles east of Atlanta. But her heart sank when she learned it was close to a school bus stop. That meant the house was off-limits under the thorniest restriction in a new Georgia law. It is one of the strictest sex-offender...

Her path is being followed by a rising number of crime victims and survivors. Despite ever-tougher sentences and the world's highest incarceration rate, many victims feel the nation's traditional method of meting out justice comes up short. Anguished and unable to heal, they are finding strength through an alternative philosophy called restorative justice. Inspired by ancient tribal traditions and biblical teachings, restorative justice aims to achieve accountability for crimes in a direct, tangible way — rather than simply through "symbolic" penalties imposed by the state. As supporters see it, offenders must understand that their crimes were not some abstract violation...

A few weeks ago my son got into trouble at school, nothing serious, but the school wanted him to go through a process of what is called restorative justice. I agreed after I learned that Florida Governor Jeb Bush and several other leaders in the GOP support this idea. We were referred to a group called the Council on Reconciliation and Restorative and Transformative Justice (CORRTJ). It was not until after the dust had settled that we discovered what we had gotten ourselves into.