- cross-posted to:
- news
Bilkszto died by suicide which according to his family was 100% caused by an online anti racism training.
Bilkszto filed a lawsuit against the [Toronto District School Board] TDSB earlier this year, related to a 2021 online anti-racism training session where he claims to have been implicitly referred to as a white supremacist by the trainer and berated in front of his colleagues when he disagreed that Canada was more racist than the U.S.
None of the allegations have been proven in court ...
The claim says Bilkszto acknowledged the country's own anti-Black racism, but suggested Canada was a more just society than the U.S., making reference to different approaches to public education and health care.
He alleged the TDSB failed to investigate his workplace harassment claim and then retaliated by disinviting him from a graduation for a program he helped create and revoking a temporary contract offer.
He started a sick leave shortly after the training sessions and was diagnosed with anxiety secondary to a workplace event, according to the claim and a copy of a Workplace Safety and Insurance Board decision provided by his lawyer, lightly redacted to omit the names of medical professionals and the case manager, along with addresses and phone numbers.
The WSIB decision dated Aug. 16, 2021, concluded Bilkszto was subject to workplace harassment and bullying. The case manager wrote the trainer appeared to intend to cause reputational damage and make an example out of him. The decision granted him loss-of-earnings benefits up to July 1, 2021, noting the medical evidence on file indicated he could return to work at that time.
Interesting how an outside trainer is apparently responsible not only for a brief interaction during a workshop but also for subsequent actions taken by TDSB's management. Somehow (not explained) she was plotting behind the scenes to have this guy's hours cut. No one is safe from the embrace of precarious work, not even alternative school ex-principals.
Not that is matters much, but for some context: Toronto is a minority white city with some areas being <25% white. So it's extremely on topic for anyone in charge of a highschool to know about how people see things even if he didn't happen to agree.
You must log in or register to comment.
I was scratching my head on this until I actually clicked in to the article and read how this guy was all about scrapping affirmative action-like policies and founding a 'non-partisan civil rights organization that supports a "colour-blindness" approach to race'. Most Canadians have the (white supremacist) belief that Canad as less racist than the US, I would expect a trainer in this arena would be prepared to encounter. Based on his track record, I think I can safely assume that it was more than a simple ideological disagreement during this training session.
If he wasn't a chud, he was a
, and I can picture the interaction to be insufferable either way.First I thought “good”
Then I read OPs quote and thought “that doesn’t make sense”
Then I read your post and thought “oh. good”
I think it's great that workers in ontario can go on paid sick leave because they disagree with something someone says in a workshop
"unlike u snowflakes im not so easily triggered"
«pulls the trigger»
how do i put the whole post under CW? I tried to find something about it but the main site side bar is dead links.
np ofc. if there is a doc somewhere describing what requires a tw and what doesn't hopefully i will stumble on it eventually
I'm not aware of any. I kind of had to bumble into figuring it out, too. Mercifully, this is one of the few communities I've ever been a part of that gives you (within reason) infinite tries to be better. Self-criticism is an integral component of all leftist tendencies.
As long as you're engaging in good faith, nobody will hold stuff like that against you. We're all here to learn and grow and shitpost. Mostly the last one.
somewhere i clicked a link https://git.chapo.chat/hexbear-collective/lemmy-hexbear/wiki/Hexbear-Code-Of-Conduct which seems to go nowhere. maybe whatever used to be at that location would be a start.
He said it would be “an incredible disservice to our learners,” to say Canada was just as bad as the U.S., according to the lawsuit. Ojo-Thompson responded, “we are here to talk about anti-Black racism, but you in your whiteness think that you can tell me what’s really going on for Black people?”
The lawsuit indicates Bilkszto maintained Canada was a more just society, while acknowledging its anti-Black racism. Another KOJO Institute consultant then allegedly stepped in and said the session was not a place to be an apologist for either country.
The lawsuit claims Ojo-Thompson brought up the exchange in a followup session a week later as an example of the ways white supremacy is upheld through resistance.
That's what it takes.
For anyone who is interested, I saw some recordings of Ojo-Thompson and I thought they were quite nice. She was well spoken and talked about known issues and their affects. I did not find it controversial, as far as I could tell it was quite standard.
She mentioned that the context of things like racism and sexism need to be taken into account and then mentioned colonialism and imperialism as issues which were the antecedents. She spoke on how humans react strongly with a physiological response to what they perceive as threats which made sense back in our early environment with animals and what not, but not in like an office environment. The sort of mismatch in proportional response is just a thing we need to deal with.
I was so perplexed, I thought surely this isn't something even people who are against the ideas haven't encountered before? It seems this kind of talk in general caused the deceased a lot mental anguish, so I'd like to understand exactly why, and whether it was more of the lack of an echo chamber or something to confirm his views in the school.
