EDITORIAL: Censorship at Canada’s Largest School Board

Article content

While Canada’s largest school board has yet to begin burning books it disagrees with, it appears to be on its way to do so.

Article content

Toronto’s public school board recently vetoed its students from participating in a book club featuring the memoirs of one of Canada’s leading lawyers and another book by a Nobel Peace Prize winner.

Why? Because, as the Globe and mail , the board’s “equity” department objected to its students listening to Toronto attorney Marie Henein and discussing her memoirs, Nothing but the truth with them, because he successfully defended Jian Ghomeshi on sexual assault charges in 2016.

Seemingly unaware that a fundamental principle of our justice system, let alone democracy, is that all those accused of a crime have a right to a defense, the board’s “fairness” department reportedly said that listening to Henein would send a bad message to “little girls.” ”.

Article content

The board then further distinguished itself by not allowing its students to engage in a discussion with Nobel Prize-winning human rights activist Nadia Murad about her book, The Last Girl: My Captivity Story and My Fight Against the Islamic State because it would promote Islamophobia.

Apparently, the Toronto school board does not know or does not care that the Islamic State is considered a terrorist organization by Canada, one that terrorizes Muslims, especially Muslim girls.

This strange story of censorship is courtesy of Tanya Lee, organizer of A Room of Your Own Book Club, who invites teenage girls, many from low-income families, to read a book and then discuss it virtually with the author.

Article content

As for the Toronto school board, after the story was published, it issued a tortured apology saying it was all an unfortunate misunderstanding.

Namely: “An opinion that did not reflect the position of the Toronto District School Board was shared with the book club organizer, before the staff had a chance to read the books” and that when they actually do read them, they don’t I doubt I will approve of them because Henein and Murad have “powerful stories to tell” that students will “learn a lot from”.

Right. What.

As Henein emailed the Balloon in response to the board’s actions: “There are words for this. Misunderstanding is not one of them. “