Anti-racism, diversity training under threat say Black community leaders at Queen's Park rally
Black community leaders rallied at Queen's Park on Wednesday to fight against what they see as threats to anti-racism, diversity, and equity training in Ontario schools.
Advocates feel that work is under attack after the death by suicide of a former Toronto District School Board principal last month.
- Download our app to get local alerts on your device
- Get the latest local updates right to your inbox
Richard Bilkszto, who worked on contract with the TDSB after his retirement in 2019, filed a lawsuit against the board in April, claiming that an anti-racism training session in 2021 and its aftermath destroyed his reputation.
Bilkszto claimed supervisors did not intervene and later retaliated against him when trainer Kike Ojo-Thompson allegedly implied he was racist and humiliated him in front of colleagues after he disagreed that Canada was more racist than the U.S.
A lawyer for Bilkszto said her client died by suicide in July.
"It is clear to us, that his death has been used as a rallying point for right-wing opponents to dismantle the necessary and imperative anti-racism work," community leader Idris Orughu said outside the legislature Wednesday.
Orughu called any attempts to link death to anti-racism education are "immoral and unethical".
None of the allegations in Bilkszto's suit have been proven in court.
The TDSB has hired a third party investigator to look into the circumstances around Bilkszto's death.
In a statement issued Wednesday evening following the rally, the TDSB said it had “unanimously resolved to reaffirm” the board’s commitment to its anti-hate and anti-racism strategy.
“We are all informed by our individual identities but through our collaborative efforts we can best support our students and staff to create positive and sustainable change,” the statement read in part.
Meanwhile, the Ministry of Education's staff is reviewing how TDSB training is carried out.
"While the review into these disturbing allegations will occur, we remain firm that professional anti-racism and anti-discrimination training will continue," a spokesperson for Education Minister Stephen Lecce wrote in a statement.
"We will continue this important work to remove barriers that hold back too many children from reaching their full potential."
Advocates say that while anti-racism education can spark difficult and uncomfortable conversations, abandoning them would be damaging.
"Anti-Black racism has mentally harmed educators, students, and youth for decades, for centuries," said Deborah Buchanan Walford with the Ontario Alliance of Black School Educators.
Black leaders feel their lived experiences need to be heard and understood.
"It's not if we're going to experience racism, it's how many times per day," said Charline Grant, co-founder of Parents of Black of Children.
"We cannot have educators dropping the N-word at school to our children. We see the racists being recycled. We have them moved, we see them being recycled. Our children are being locked in rooms."
Those gathered at Queen's Park were encouraged to see a commitment to combatting anti-Black racism in an Emancipation Day message from Premier Doug Ford on Tuesday, but want those words to translate into action.
With files from The Canadian Press
CTVNews.ca Top Stories
Parents of infant who died in wrong-way crash on Ontario's Hwy. 401 were in same vehicle
Ontario’s Special Investigations Unit has released new details about a wrong-way collision in Whitby on Monday night that claimed the lives of four people.
Three Quebec men from same family father hundreds of children
Three men in Quebec from the same family have fathered more than 600 children.
B.C. mayor stripped of budget, barred from committees over Indigenous residential schools book
A British Columbia mayor has been censured by city council – stripping him of his travel and lobbying budgets and removing him from city committees – for allegedly distributing a book that questions the history of Indigenous residential schools in Canada.
OPP's mandatory alcohol screening during traffic stops 'not acceptable': CCLA
A spike in impaired driving-related collisions has caused Ontario’s provincial police to begin enforcing mandatory alcohol screening (MAS) at all traffic stops in the Greater Toronto Area -- a move one civil rights group says is ‘not acceptable.’
Maple Leafs down Bruins 2-1 to force Game 7
William Nylander scored twice and Joseph Woll made 22 saves as the Toronto Maple Leafs downed the Boston Bruins 2-1 on Thursday to force Game 7 in their first-round series.
Jurors in Trump hush money trial hear recording of pivotal call on plan to buy affair story
Jurors in the hush money trial of Donald Trump heard a recording Thursday of him discussing with his then-lawyer and personal fixer a plan to purchase the silence of a Playboy model who has said she had an affair with the former president.
Southern Alberta store broken into by burly black bear
Staff at a small southern Alberta office supply store were shocked to find someone had broken into the business last week, but they were even more confused when they discovered the culprit was a bear.
Captain sentenced to 4 years for criminal negligence in fiery deaths of 34 aboard scuba boat
A federal judge on Thursday sentenced a scuba dive boat captain to four years in custody and three years supervised release for criminal negligence after 34 people died in a fire aboard the vessel.
New scam targets Canada Carbon Rebate recipients
Fake text message and email campaigns trying to get money and information out of unsuspecting Canadian taxpayers have started circulating, just months after the federal government rebranded the carbon tax rebate the Canada Carbon Rebate.