The Patriot Post® · The Left's Flawed Response to School Fights

School fights are as old as time, but their recent popularity as social media content is something new.

Many are appalled that such violence takes place, and they wonder how this behavior is allowed to persist. Public school parents and teachers nationwide give reports of violence taking place in schools and how it has affected them.

Recently, a video of a fight at a Missouri school has circulated on social media. The video shows a female student being attacked and her head being repeatedly slammed into the concrete. When the aggressor gets off the victim, she leaves her convulsing and in critical condition. After outrage on social media, the aggressor was identified and arrested.

At a high school in Issaquah, Washington, students were placed on lockdown due to a bad fight that required assistance from first responders. According to journalist Jonathon Choe on X, a male student was arrested after being involved in a school fight. Parent sources stated that several teachers were stabbed, and the vice principal was seriously injured.

Schools nationwide have become relaxed on student discipline and have even cut out their school resource officers. Teachers and students are left feeling unsafe and helpless in an environment that is supposed to be safe but isn’t due to the lack of student discipline.

In 2014, then-President Barack Obama sent a “Dear Colleague” letter to the Department of Education stating that there were racial disparities in student discipline in public schools. His administration threatened school districts with investigations if their student discipline data showed any racial disparities. This caused school districts to suppress data and stop disciplining students. This action was rescinded during the Trump administration only to be reinstated by the Biden administration.

Obama’s threats brought in a new wave of pseudo-discipline called restorative justice. This type of discipline prioritizes mending the relationship between the aggressor and victim. If an unruly child acts out in the classroom, the teacher is to gather the class to discuss the aggressor’s feelings and understand why the aggressor would have behaved in such a way. This type of discipline has resulted in a decrease in student suspensions and an increase in school violence. Imagine that. Zero-tolerance policies are hardly followed in the name of equity.

Parents who wonder whether their child’s school practices restorative justice can usually find this information on the school district website. Like all bad ideas from the Left, restorative justice is often rebranded. Parents can search for restorative justice, restorative practices, progressive discipline, or Positive Behavioral Interventions and Supports (PBIS).

It is important to continue pressuring school districts to drop restorative justice as their main form of student discipline. Supporters of restorative justice love to talk of Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs but forget that Maslow believed that safety is the topmost need that must be met. Restorative justice does not meet that need for safety and ultimately does more harm than good.