Justice Matters

Shortlisted for the 2024 O.L. Davis Outstanding Book Award from the AATC

Social justice has become a buzzword to suggest we are serious about racism, sexism, classism, heterosexism, and ableism. But justice remains elusive and contested. It is written in founding documents, and street soldiers declare it: "no justice, no peace!", yet it is absent from public interactions. Building on Cornel West’s notion of ‘race matters’ and the Black Lives Matter movement, Justice Matters strips away the rhetoric that keeps us from understanding what justice is, particularly in education, but also in relation to health, race, economy, and environment.

Ladson-Billings interrogates the meaning of justice, examining Western notions of justice from Aristotle to Kant to Rorty, alongside Eastern notions from Lao Tzu, Rumi, Frantz Fanon, and W.E.B. Dubois. She demonstrates how the pandemic has exposed deep injustices in society and how schooling and the curriculum are largely blind to race, White supremacy, and the racial trauma that plagues marginalised people. She argues that teaching strategies that rely on hierarchy, such as ability groups, tell students who they are and what we expect of them, supposedly performing a 'just' act but also suggesting that some people are ‘less’ than others - the very narrative of White supremacy.

Schooling is the genesis of exclusion and incarceration, with strategies like classroom exclusion, suspension, and expulsion laying the groundwork for the school-to-prison pipeline. Offering hope for a way forward, she explores how hip hop can champion justice and considers justice in the context of social movements, including Black Lives Matter, MoveOn.org, and #MeToo. She also examines the pros and cons of 'hashtag activism'. Ultimately, she shows us how justice can and should be the central tenet of education and society, and how we can save it from being obscured and watered down.