Education minister orders review into allegations of TDSB principal who died by suicide | CBC News
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Ontario's education minister says his staff will review the allegations of a principal who died by suicide months after launching a lawsuit against the Toronto District School Board for allegedly failing to support him when he was accused of racism during a professional training session.

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.

  • IzyaKatzmann [he/him]
    ·
    1 year ago

    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.