About 100 Penn students filled the Houston Hall Benjamin Franklin Room’s seats, floor space and windowsills Tuesday night to hear a roundtable discussion on restorative justice.
The aim of the evening was to get students thinking and talking about race and restorative justice, said College senior Janice Dow, co-director of the Race Dialogue Project, which organized the event.
University Chaplain Charles Howard introduced each professor of the roundtable, which consisted of three professors each specializing in different areas of history.
“It’s a complicated thing, the world,” Political Science professor Ian Lustick began the discussion. He ventured into how the Israelis gained reparations from the Germans after the Holocaust, claiming that there was no justice involved but that reparations “set the two countries on the road to reconciliation.”
History professor Eiichiro Azuma was next to talk, giving the historical background of the 1960s Asian American Movement. The activists’ focus on citizenship rights gained support because “American people care about individual rights,” he said.
Steven Hahn, also a History professor, added that class is an issue in addition to race. He went on to discuss how groups of people suffered because of their lack of political power.
When the audience was invited to ask questions, heated debate ensued on topics such as who has the right to demand reparations and the role of education in restorative justice.
Students “did not shy away from complicated and provocative questions,” said College sophomore Logan Bayroff said. He added that he found the event “extremely interesting.”
Hahn was impressed by the “sharp, well informed, challenging and thought-provoking” questions that students asked. “I’m happy to see people care about this,” he said.
Board member of Race Dialogue Project and College sophomore Maya Brandon felt that the evening was “really charged.” She added that the talk provided “a lot of food for thought after the discussion.”
Wharton senior Wendy De La Rosa enjoyed the event as it discussed issues not usually talked about at Penn. “We live in a pretense that Penn is so diverse,” she said. “Penn as a whole needs to care about these issues.”
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