DEI Permanently Inscribed at the Toronto District School Board

"The introduction of a mandatory certification on equity, diversity and anti-racism for all K-12 teachers in Ontario would ensure that teachers are better equipped to support racialized students and educators effectively"

"Ongoing professional development on equity and diversity will help ensure teachers are equipped with current best practices to further an inclusive classroom."

Toronto District School Board (TDSB) motion 

The school board of Canada's largest city has distinguished itself as representing the most passionate among all school boards in Canadian cities for permanently installing a life-and-values system in the education of the city's students that exemplifies the last word in commitment to diversity, equity and inclusion policies. And despite a loud blowback from parent groups and the outraged opposition to this commitment by many factions within the city the TDSB feels it has not sufficiently entrenched its program, to the effect that a committee within the board voted to forward a request to the provincial government making DEI certification mandatory for educators.

 

Academic performance among students in the TDSB has deteriorated at an alarming rate of late under a curriculum that has been socially politicized; basic education has been eviscerated in favour of focusing on woke values that have nothing whatever to do with delivering and acquiring an education preparatory to producing the next generation of intelligent, civil and engaged adults to enter the workforce as responsible members of society.

This, even as society is moving steadily away from the always-controversial Critical Race Theory, 'woke' agenda that has become the signature of the progressive left, sponsored in part by the federal government under Justin Trudeau's Liberals, trickling down to lower-scale governments, unions, academia, corporate interests, driven by a liberal-left that has demonized and scorned antediluvian attitudes expressed in rejection of transmania, light sentencing of criminality, 'safe' injection sites, assisted suicide -- all dressed in the mantle of a kindler, gentler society. 

A kinder, gentler society where by sheer coincidence, Canadian Jews have been aggressively hounded, threatened and isolated in consequence of a drive by Canadian Muslim groups aided and funded by foreign interests to mount virulent anti-Israel campaigns seeking to delegitimize and demonize a nation fighting back against Islamist Palestinian terrorist attacks threatening to destroy the tiny Jewish state in an orgy of rape, murder and abductions, portrayed through a Jew-hating campaign as aggressors of victimized Palestinians.

The TDSB found merit in allying itself with these groups, just as labour unions and university boards, teaching staff and students have been persuaded by Islamist Jew-haters among them to harass and threaten Jewish members of their organizations. At a time when the general public has become sufficiently fed up with loud and threatening demonstrations by 'activist' groups, a majority of Canadians responding to polls reject and oppose diversity quotas as divisive, hostile and bullying.

Private companies and public institutions alike are moving away from hiring quotas and support of divisive activist groups promoting DEI ideals. Influential large corporations like Walmart, McDonald's, Ford and Meta are among major companies reversing their own DEI programs. Yet there is the TDSB proposing and asking the province to make it mandatory for teachers to undergo DEI certification before entering a classroom, and to ensure that this becomes standard throughout the province.

 

The Toronto District School Board’s head office on Yonge Street in Toronto, Ont. on Jan. 15. Gabe Oatley/TorontoToday

The decision to remove auditions and applications based on merit and use random selection to specialized art, music, math, science and sport programs at the TDSB came as a result of anti-black racism and equity initiatives.

Through the board’s Centre of Excellence — which was added in 2021-22 at a cost of $2.3-million a year — specialized camps, basketball programs and mentorships have been offered to black students only.

These anti-racism initiatives saw the removal of student resources officers — specialized cops — in the board’s schools and eliminated consequences for bad behaviour, most specifically suspensions and expulsions.

As a result, some TDSB schools have become war zones.

Sue-Ann Levy, True North

Virulently Racist Palestinians Accuse Jews of Anti-Palestinian Racism

 

"Antisemitism has been a huge problem at the Toronto District School Board [TDSB]. Their own data says that last fall incidents of antisemitism tripled."

"The only definition of anti-Palestinian racism that I've seen, and it's one that is frequently cited among advocates, says denying the Nakba or trying to silence or exclude Palestinian narratives, is a form of anti-Palestinian racism."

"Adopting this definition of anti-Palestinian racism also means you're going to have to adopt Nakba Day because any resistance to the idea that it should be taught in schools is racist; is a form [purportedly] of anti-Palestinian racism. So they are linked in that way."

"If anything, there's lots of data to support lots of anti-Israeli sentiment in schools, and not really data to support anti-Palestinian sentiment in schools."

Aaron Kucharczuk, Jewish parent of TDSB students

Some parents want to see the addition of anti-Palestinian racism to the board's equity policy and an assurance that students or staff won't be punished for supporting Palestinian human rights.  (Martin Trainor/CBC)

"Jewish children have been clearly targeted in TDSB schools and the national hate crime data makes it very clear that Jews are the most religiously targeted group in Canada."

"CAEF [Canadian Antisemitism Education Foundation] strongly urges you to send this report back to staff with an eye to addressing issues of antisemitism and anti-Israeli racism in our schools."

"Do not ignore the issues at hand; do not adopt an anti-Jew bias; do not fail to consider  how this bias played out just 75 years ago in Europe."

Andria Spindel, executive director, Canadian Antisemitism Education Foundation

Palestinians' beloved state of victimhood centres around what they term the Nakba; in essence the creation of the modern State of Israel, born out of the ashes of the diaspora nightmare of the Holocaust when the ashes of incinerated Jews lifted from the chimneys of the ovens installed at the death camps that Nazi Germany built in Europe to contain Jews for slave labour, medical experimentation, and the killing machines that exterminated six million of Europe's Jews. 

Under the 1947 United Nations' Partition Plan offered to Jews and to Palestinians, Jews were happy to have the world's permission to re-establish a Jewish State on a small portion of their ancestral heritage geography, prepared to live alongside a Palestinian state. Those identifying themselves as Arab Palestinians were not prepared to live alongside a Jewish state, preferring instead to wait the few weeks it would take for a combined Arab army to destroy the nascent Israel of 1948.

That tiny Israel, assembling a core battle group of self-preservation, ill-equipped and -trained as they were, still managed to prevail, preventing its annihilation and with it the lives of Israel's Jews taught the world that Jews could and would protect themselves from another Holocaust-in-the-making. A triumph of preservation for Jews and Israel, a 'disaster' for Arab Palestinians. Anyone celebrating the Nakba as an event worth recognizing, by that recognition automatically mourns the creation of Israel, considering it 'illegitimate'; in effect approving of the 'resistance' call: 'From the River to the Sea, Palestine will be free'. A call for Israel's destruction.

The Toronto District School Board appears to have recognized the merit of recognition of 'anti-Palestinian racism' that activists insist be included in the anti-racism strategy of the district. It has its counterpart in Ontario's Education Ministry recently reaffirming a need, reflecting the rising tide of antisemitism -- fuelled mostly by the Palestinians in Canada and their supporters -- to formally include the history of the Holocaust in the curriculum. One, a horrific event in world history, the other a plaintive fiction of deprivation.

The strategy released by the TDSB under Combating Hate and Racism: Student Learning Strategy Update 2024, featured the term 'anti-Palestinian racism'. And what might that conceivably be, a bemused audience might ask. Try this on for size: denying the actuality of the 'disaster' that befell Arab Palestinians when -- although they were offered equal opportunity to establish a state of their own and they curled their collective lips in disdain -- Israel established itself as a reborn homeland for the world's Jews.

A vote must yet take place to adopt the resolution to adopt the term 'anti-Palestinian racism' as a portion of the strategy at the Board against hate and racism. Palestinians view the acceptance of Israel as a major symptom of hateful racism against themselves. Any who recognize the utter absurdity of the proposal are ipso facto racists. Criticism of Arabs taking onto themselves the mantle of 'Palestinians' when historically the identification was that accrued to Jews during the Roman era, and questioning Arab claims to ancestral Judaic lands represents the philosophical crime of 'racism'.

 

Along with the Toronto District School Board, neighbouring Peel District School Board decided to commemorate the Nakba as a significant date on the board's calendar. A TDSB school, Faywood Arts-Based Curriculum School, was the venue of a Jewish student subjected to vicious harassment from immigrant Arab/Palestinian students, leading to hundreds of neighbouring adults escorting the child to class in a show of support against bullying threats, as a symbol of rejection of actual racist antisemitism. 

 

The young student had been intimidated and threatened that his persecutors would "do to him what Hamas did to Israel. We need to kill you all, and you need to bow down to us". Students at the school took part in anti-Israel walkouts, chanting "From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free". Teachers observed the events, doing nothing to apprehend their repetition. Thousands of parents signed an open letter demanding the TDSB "be held accountable for ensuring the safety and well-being of all students in their care".  

The atmosphere prevailing was decidedly antisemitic, with handouts in classrooms advocating for the sanctioning of Israel. Classrooms were decorated with Palestinian scarves. Jewish students within the Board represent 3.5 percent of the student population, while incidents of antisemitism comprise 15 percent of total incidents. "It makes me feel like the TDSB has no interest in keeping my kids safe", said Aaron Kucharczuk, a parent of students attending the Board's schools, where every day's events bring yet another level of uncertainty and apprehension within the Jewish community.

Antisemitic incidents comprise 15 per cent of total incidents within the TDSB despite Jewish students making up just 3.5 percent. Photo by Frank Gunn/The Canadian Press/File

Bullying, Threatening Jewish Children in Toronto

"They told him, we need to kill you.They started shoving and kicking him. And he was really vulnerable and by himself in that situation. The vice-principal who was outside in the playground, she was standing probably far away, so she couldn't hear what was transpiring, but when it started to become physical, she went to defuse the situation."

"And when my son told her, 'Can I please share with you what happened? [she told him 'I don't have time for this'."

"We were at a bit of [a] loss, but that same evening, a parent knocked on our door saying, 'I've heard so-and-so happened from my child. I want to just make sure that  you're all OK'."

"They [the Faywood Arts-Based Curriculum School, North York, Toronto] need to do something. They're doing literally nothing. They say they're doing stuff but nobody knows what they're doing."

Adi Cohen, mother of four school-age children, Israeli doctor in Canada on fellowship

A community support walk was held earlier this week to allow the bullied boy to walk safely to school. Photo by Larry Maher

A visiting Israeli family of two parents, both doctors working temporarily in Toronto in the medical profession is unimpressed with the Toronto District School Board having taken no discernible action relating to the ongoing, serious and threatening antisemitism their two oldest children, in Grades 8 and 5 are experiencing. Their two other children, in Grade 3 and senior kindergarten have not yet suffered any of these worrisome indignities.

 

Repeated bullying suffered by the two older children predates the October 7 Hamas attack on Israel, but since then the confrontations have escalated. Death threats have been uttered against both children. Three police reports were filed by the family, owing to the school's inaction in creating a safe environment for their Jewish students. Incidents serious enough to alarm other members of the community some of whose children had experienced similar bullying.

Their concerns resulted in a "community support walk" that took place one Friday morning a few days back, a symbolic move that sent a message that all is not well. There was one incident when the second oldest child in the Cohen family was accosted while his older brother was elsewhere. A group of students uttered death threats mocking that his older brother wasn't available to protect him. After the incident the older brother approached the group and a physical altercation ensued.

 

Hundreds of community members gathered to walk Eitan Cohen, 13, to his school – Faywood Arts-Based Curriculum School – in North York to ensure the Jewish boy didn't get bullied on Friday, May 17, 2024. Supplied

The Cohen parents went to the school to speak with the vice-principal and principal the following day when an investigation was launched concluding that "comments were made on both sides". When the school administration was pressed for details, Adi Cohen was informed her son had told the group to "go back to their homeland"; a clue that the group was comprised of Muslim youth. Her son, however denied that statement, correcting it that he had really said, "go to your room lunch".

"He has a pretty heavy [Israeli] accent. and they took the aggressors' words for what happened without even asking and the aggressors denied everything that happened." Following another meeting with parents and representatives of the school board the investigation was reopened. She was informed by another principal the second investigation found the incidents occurred just as her son described, yet she was left with no impression that the other students faced any consequences, as a result of privacy laws.

Citing another incident, the older boy was bullied on video that was shared on social media, where a substitute teacher failed to intervene. Her son felt provoked to action and attempted to snatch the phone from another student. "The school is doing nothing, the teacher was doing nothing, they just let it happen. At some point, he got so frustrated, he tried to physically take the phone away and then they wanted to suspend him for violence", she explained.

In yet another incident sticks, stones and a water bottle were thrown at her son as he walked to school. The boy has been warned by other students that they would "do to him what Hamas did to Israel". A WhatsApp community group organized a day of support walk for the two boys, sending out a flyer to garner support, reading: "Our community must act. If school can't keep our kids safe, we will." The flyer also read: "No megaphones, no flags, this is about our children's safety".

The visiting Israeli mother's activism inspired other families of other students at the school who are "terrified" to thank her for speaking out publicly and bringing attention to the situation where Muslim students are preying on Jewish students in a situation where those in authority appear to be sitting on their hands and ostensibly waiting for things to calm down; in the process of doing nothing, signalling that the threats and bullying can continue without disciplinary action being taken.

 

In Toronto, community members come to walk a boy to school whose family says he has faced ongoing antisemitic bullying, May 17, 2024.

"I do believe that he feels that he's not alone. And it gives him the courage and the strength to keep on standing up for himself and for others. [The walk, and support offered by other families is] very helpful."

"I just need this to stop. I need to know that my son is going to school and that he's safe and that he's been taken care of."

"And that I won't get a phone call from the hospital saying something has happened."

Public Schools in Canada as Guardians of Anti-Colonialism White Privilege

"The census teams will work to actively highlight the nuances of how systems and structures of power create hierarchies that privilege some and oppress others."

"The Toronto District School Board remains committed to ensuring that all students are represented in the census, including those who previously may not have seen themselves reflected in the previous iterations of the survey."

"More information, including a new census release date will be shared once staff have the opportunity to review materials."

"Materials, including a Guiding Research Principles document, meant to provide context into how the census was developed, were posted without an internal review and approval. As a result, the TDSB is disappointed that we must pause the release of the census itself until the review process can be conducted."

"Our students must be able to voice their experiences and inform the development of school and system programs. It is regrettable that there will be delay in gathering this important information."

Toronto District School Board research guidelines

A 15-page census questionnaire to be distributed to those in grades four through six asks students their race, ethnicity, religion, sexual orientation and whether their parents were born in Canada or completed university. Photo by Jack Boland/Postmedia/File

"[Census takers have openly expressed an aim to use the data to] dismantle all forms of colonial and settler colonial violence."

"Historically, data collection and evidence have been abused, misused and exploited in ways that harmed communities [official census guidelines].

"[This time they will be explicitly using census data to] disrupt all structures of oppression [and centre] Indigeneity and Black lives [in the school system]."

"There are multiple interlocking and intersectional oppressions present in our schools, but race becomes the axis on which multiple oppressions are engaged."

"[We plan not only to use the census data to] highlight structures of oppression and pain [but will work from] joy-centred frames [to create] alternative futures rooted in community joy and excellence."

Aakriti Kapoor, Stefanie De Jesus and Amie Presley, research co-ordinators, TDSB

Little do parents whose children have long since passed through public elementary and high schools unscathed by political correctness gone the way of the new sanctimonious progressive 'woke' syndrome, realize how dysfunctionally erratic and convulsed the education system has become with its eye on shielding children from the evils of racism, inequality, homophobia and White privilege. Children have become pawns in the agenda of fundamentalist 'wokers' determined to rout out any vestiges of intolerance against gender differences, ethnicity, colour, the disadvantaged and the addicted for they will not tolerate their presence.

Anyone who disagrees that transgenderism is real and requires sympathetic support and accelerated celebration, is clearly phobic and in all likelihood racist as well. The Canada that Canadians lived all their lives believing was a modern, non-judgemental, accepting, tolerant society committed to egalitarian values and fairness in an equal society that offers opportunities for all, irrespective of ethnicity, religion, heritage, political views has been an illusion. Canadians have prided themselves on their sense of social justice so it comes as a surprise to be informed that we're a racist society in the 21st century.

Canada's largest school board is now invested in dismantling oppression, equalizing the playing field for all, with the noted exception of White colonialists, courtesy of the woke -- and here naive Torontonians thought they'd already arrived at that juncture. The school board was on the cusp of launching an updated race-based student census; its goal -- to root out the "white supremacist" ad "colonialist" structure that has been the foundation of the Toronto school system. November was to be the start point of 247,000 students scheduled to complete a questionnaire.

Questions relating to race, ethnic origin, sexual orientation, the educational status of parents and their mental health were all included on the questionnaire. The TDSB released a statement, however informing that the survey would be delayed, giving the board an opportunity to review the guidelines posted online, then subsequently removed. "Identity-based" data has been collected by the TDSB previously through student censuses; the information used to identify select racial and ethnic groups having difficulty with curriculum.

For the first time, however, the census-takers themselves have expressed openly their intention to use collected data to "dismantle all forms of colonial and settler colonial violence". They produced a 40-page package the three census-takers drafted. Aakriti Kapoor, Stefanie De Jesus and Amie Presley are full-time research coordinators employed by the Toronto District School Board. "Research will work to create decolonial futures to reverse the harms created by ongoing realities of colonialism and systemic racism", they wrote.

Their explanatory note identified them as active adherents of "critical race theory", the belief that racism is an "ingrained aspect of society", that can be countered only by race-centric policy explicitly favouring "historically marginalized voices". The traditional Canadian belief in "colour-blind" and "multiculturalism" as a society-in-government policy they identified as a symbol of white supremacy. Racism, their glossary pointed out, is not "simple prejudice" and as such exists only when one group has "power"over another; racism, ipso facto -- against "privileged" groups is not possible.

Their document substitutes "Canada" and "Toronto" for the term "Land the Board is situated upon". Available publicly on the TDSB website originally, the link to the guidelines now declares the document not to be compliant with the Accessibility for Ontarians with Disability Act.  Previous such censusus were comprised of optional questionnaires meant to be completed at home. Any student in Grade Four or above for this census was to be handed optional class assignment materials. To be distributed to students in Grades Four through Six, a 15-page document queries students on race, ethnicity, religion, sexual orientation and whether their parents were born in Canada, or had completed university.

Standard questions were complete with those asking whether students "like" school or "feel accepted" by classmates. Questions whether teachers are using their preferred pronouns included a checklist of places where students feel "Unsafe", such as "prayer spaces", "single gender washrooms", "all-gender washrooms" and "school events", were also included in the checklist. 

Clearly, not all parents are besotted with this search for information. Toronto lawyer Ian Cooper last week sent a letter to the board expressing "grave concerns" of parents with respect to the new census, commenting that the process could be in violation of a host of provincial laws, including the Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act and the Personal Health Information Protection Act.

"For many Canadians who have experienced persecution based on their personal characteristics and immigrated to Canada to escape that persecution -- the fact that their government is collecting a vast database that includes every child's race, gender, sexual orientation, mental health data, and other personal information is troubling."

Toronto lawyer Ian Cooper