Institutional Critique as Healing

Rather than accepting punishment within flawed systems, Sor Juana used her writing to critique the very institutions claiming authority to judge her. She refused to be passive in punitive systems and instead examined their contradictions and injustices. In restorative justice, institutional critique serves a healing function—it names the structural roots of harm rather than treating symptoms. This approach recognizes that many harms are not individual failings but systemic failures. By examining how institutions enable harm, restorative frameworks can address root causes rather than merely managing consequences. Sor Juana's model suggests that victims and affected communities must be empowered to question and critique the systems meant to serve them. This is not punishment of institutions but transformation of them. Healing requires institutional accountability—understanding how systems failed to prevent harm, how they may have enabled it, and how they must change to prevent future injustice. Institutional critique becomes a restorative tool when it leads to meaningful structural transformation.