![\"Action](\"https:\/\/cdn.vanderbilt.edu\/t2-my\/my-prd\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/1109\/2016\/09\/Action-Summitt-1.jpg\")
<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
In my roles as a professor at Vanderbilt\u2019s Divinity School and as the director of the University\u2019s Cal Turner Program for Moral Leadership, I often find myself in classrooms, talking about the meaning and nature of justice.\u00a0 We read Plato, Aristotle, Kant, and Rawls together.\u00a0 It can be exhilarating.\u00a0 But I have also taught in Riverbend Maximum Security Prison.\u00a0 I have been to a parole hearing when the family of the murdered victim expressed deep anger and unremitting pain, 25 years on.\u00a0 I have friends who have been victims of violence and who have committed violence against others.\u00a0 Perhaps they have been a victim of violence, or maybe they have been picked up by the police or arrested for a crime.\u00a0 We know that people of color are disproportionally policed, criminalized, and incarcerated.<\/p>\n
As a parent, a citizen of the United States, and as a member of the Nashville community, I know that for many people in our country, the question of justice is not simply a matter of intellectual exercising; it is personal<\/em>.<\/p>\n In one way or another, members of our communities have become part of the \u201cjustice system\u201d that is long on system and short on justice.\u00a0 The counselor\u2019s office, the back of a police car, the courthouse, the lawyer\u2019s office, the prison, and the Parole office are the primary sites for conversations about justice for too many Americans.\u00a0 For them, justice is no mere concept for classroom consideration.\u00a0 The need for a healing justice is real, and the form justice takes in their lives matters<\/em>.<\/p>\n Unfortunately, the system of justice becomes too often another vehicle of violence.\u00a0 It tears at the fabric of our common life.\u00a0 It damages bodies. It is de-humanizing and divisive, disrupting families and communities.\u00a0 It undermines our national life and makes a sham of our highest ideals of justice for all.\u00a0 Without a truer justice, we cannot flourish, individually or communally.\u00a0 Justice matters.<\/p>\n Because justice matters so profoundly, the CTP is hosting a conversation about the means and purposes of Justice in the City. \u00a0We will take up the questions, \u201cHow are we to respond to violence? How can justice be practiced in our lives and in our communities?\u201d\u00a0 True justice seeks not simply to make violators pay for their actions; it seeks to mitigate, to heal, to repair, and, to the degree possible, restore\u2014not simply order\u2014but restore relationships, communities, and bodies.\u00a0 On September 30, through October 1, the CTP will host a summit focused on Restorative Justice.\u00a0 At this meeting, we will learn from experiments in restorative justice, an approach that focuses on harm and healing rather than violation and punishment, in order to make a truer justice possible. We believe that in this nation and in this city, when it comes to justice, we can do better.\u00a0 Please join us in this work.<\/p>\n In my roles as a professor at Vanderbilt\u2019s Divinity School and as the director of the University\u2019s Cal Turner Program for Moral Leadership, I often find myself in classrooms, talking about the meaning and nature of justice.\u00a0 We read Plato, Aristotle, Kant, and Rawls together.\u00a0 It can be exhilarating.\u00a0 But I have also taught in…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1576,"featured_media":2475,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2473","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-feature"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/my.vanderbilt.edu\/vanderbiltdivinity\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2473","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/my.vanderbilt.edu\/vanderbiltdivinity\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/my.vanderbilt.edu\/vanderbiltdivinity\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/my.vanderbilt.edu\/vanderbiltdivinity\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1576"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/my.vanderbilt.edu\/vanderbiltdivinity\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2473"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/my.vanderbilt.edu\/vanderbiltdivinity\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2473\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2483,"href":"https:\/\/my.vanderbilt.edu\/vanderbiltdivinity\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2473\/revisions\/2483"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/my.vanderbilt.edu\/vanderbiltdivinity\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2475"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/my.vanderbilt.edu\/vanderbiltdivinity\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2473"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/my.vanderbilt.edu\/vanderbiltdivinity\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2473"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/my.vanderbilt.edu\/vanderbiltdivinity\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2473"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"graham-reside\"](\"https:\/\/cdn.vanderbilt.edu\/t2-my\/my-prd\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/1109\/2016\/04\/graham-reside-150x150.jpg\")
by Graham Reside
\nExecutive Director, Cal Turner Program in Moral Leadership for the Professions
\nAssistant Professor, Vanderbilt University Divinity School<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"