Restorative Justice and Campus Sexual Misconduct
Volume 89, No. 4, Summer 2017
By Margo Kaplan [PDF]

There is ample scholarship on campus sexual assault and on restorative justice but surprisingly little analysis on using the former to address the latter. This Article argues that restorative justice allows universities to leverage their strengths and avoid some of the pitfalls inherent in employing a quasi–criminal justice system that they are ill-suited to manage. The Article provides a deeper, more expansive look at the implications for schools, students, and the criminal justice system in the event that universities implement restorative justice processes for campus sexual assault. It argues that restorative justice and universities may be uniquely suited to each other; using restorative justice may resolve many problems in the traditional campus disciplinary system, and the university setting may avoid several complications that restorative justice raises in the criminal justice system.

Margo Kaplan is an Associate Professor of Law at Rutgers Law School.