Implementation Is Not Enough: Anti-Racism and Decolonization Must Be at the Center of Restorative Justice

This post builds on my ongoing work with restorative practices in schools, including my latest publication in Teachers and Teaching: Theory and Practice, where I explore how racial discipline disparities persist—even in districts that claim to have eliminated them. You can read that study here.

This isn’t just about the what of restorative justice. It’s about the how and the why. It’s about the worldviews that guide our practice, and the systems we’re still upholding when we refuse to name race, power, and colonial harm.

Implementation ≠ Transformation

There’s a dangerous assumption that if you train a few staff, add circles to the schedule, and hire a restorative coordinator, you’re “doing” restorative justice.

But too often, restorative practices are added into carceral systems rather than replacing them. They get embedded in school cultures still obsessed with compliance, silence, and control. Circles happen in classrooms where kids are still being surveilled and policed. Referrals are rebranded but not rethought.

Restorative justice is not a strategy. It’s a worldview.

If we treat it like a toolkit without attending to the values underneath, we end up with practices that are restorative in name only. We get the illusion of reform—without transformation.

Anti-Racism Is Not Optional

Restorative practices are often implemented as a response to racial disparities in school discipline. But in many districts, race disappears during implementation. Programs are rolled out using race-neutral language. Staff are trained on techniques, not histories of harm. Students of color are still removed from classrooms under different names such as “reset rooms,” “wellness breaks,” or “reflection time.”

In my study of a school district widely recognized for its restorative justice efforts, I found that even in schools with no reported racial disparities in suspension data, Black boys were still being sent to the office more than anyone else. Teachers often didn’t see it, or they felt helpless to change it.

That’s what Critical Race Theory calls structural determinism: when systems shape what people believe is possible. It’s not enough to train teachers to “care.” If we don’t confront racism directly, we will replicate it.

Restorative Practices Are Not Old

Restorative justice is often marketed as ancient, Indigenous, and universal. But these claims can erase more than they reveal.

The circle practices and relational worldviews that many restorative programs draw from belong to specific Indigenous nations and cultures. They are not just “old” or “communal,” they are rooted in sovereignty, land, language, and tradition. When institutions adopt these practices without acknowledging where they come from, or being accountable to the people they come from, they turn sacred knowledge into tools of reform.

Restorative practices, as they are widely implemented in schools and systems today, are not inherently anti-colonial. They often reinforce colonial power by ignoring land, erasing cultural specificity, and prioritizing institutional goals over Indigenous relationships. If we are not actively unsettling those systems, we are not repairing, we are extracting.

What Centering Anti-Racism and Decolonization Looks Like

To do this work with integrity, we have to center the values that gave rise to it:

• Inclusive approaches led or co-created by youth, families, and community members, not just school administrators

• Moving past "implicit bias" and directly naming and confronting racism, white supremacy, and colonization with educators and school administrators

• Data that includes student voice and lived experience, not just office referrals and suspension rates

• Clear boundaries around when a practice is truly “restorative” and when it’s just behavior management in disguise

This work is slower. It’s relational. It’s messy. And that’s the point.

A Question, Not a Checklist

If we want restorative practices to live up to their promise, we can’t treat them like a checklist. We have to ask: Whose vision are we following? Whose values are we centering?

Implementation without anti-racism and decolonization isn’t restoration—it’s rebranding.

What are you seeing in your schools or communities? Who’s doing this well? What’s getting in the way?

Let’s keep the conversation going.