Toronto District School reports Human Rights Report for 2018-2020 highlights anti-black racism as a serious problem

BY PAUL JUNOR

The release of the first groundbreaking report by the Human Rights Office of the Toronto District School Board (TDSB) on Thursday, February 11^th, 2020 has brought the issue of anti-black racism to the forefront of public attention.

It has received national attention by the mainstream media; Global News, CBC News Toronto and the Toronto Star. There is no doubt that the TDSB has faced many challenges over the years. It has lost several senior superintendents, and the search is on for a Director of Education after the resignation of Dr John Malloy in June 2020.

The release of this Human Rights Report 2018-2020 will surely invite debates, discussions and conversations about what it will take to move the TDSB ahead.

In fact, “Employees in the TDSB are required to report to managerial staff any incidents of hate, bias or racism that they encounter through hate activity reports.” (tdsb.on.ca/ Leadership).

This formal policy on reporting and responding to racism and hate incidents involving or affecting students in schools resulted from the vote by TDSB trustees in 2019 to develop it. Data is obtained by analyzing incidents of human rights complaints reported to the Human Rights Office by staff, students and parents.

The report examined data obtained from September 2018 to April 2019 and between June 2019 and August 31^st, 2020. The report shows that there were 64 hate activity reports filed by the end of the 2018-2019 school year, and 312 by the end of the 2019-2020 school year. 69% of the reported incidents were race-related in the 2019-2020 period with anti-black racism making up the largest percent. It was followed by anti-Asian sentiments, anti-semitism and Islamophobia.

The report notes that,“The data clearly indicates that the board continues to have a serious problem. Incidents of racism and hate occur in TDSB schools daily and they do so in significant numbers.” It states that, “Specifically, incidents of anti-black racism exceeded all other incidents reported by a wide margin.”

The 128 page document notes that, “Race or race-related incidents are the most frequent ground of complaints received by the Human Rights Office making up 54% of all complaints alleging a human rights violation.”

Jim Spyropolous, who serves as superintendent of equity, engagement and well being told Global News on February 12^th, that, “Black students, Indigenous students, students who self-identify as being disabled do not feel as comfortable as they should. They don’t feel as connected to our system as they should.”

He told the Toronto Star on February 12^th, 2021 that, “We see a very distinct pattern of a disproportionate number of complaints being based on race, specifically anti-black racism. We have drawn the conclusion that anti-black racism is a serious issue at the TDSB, and it just confirms data that we’ve had for many years.”

One of the significant revelations from the report was the number of complaints from black administrators who had personally experienced racism. Superintendent Spyropolous told CBC News on February 12^th, 2021 that, “We have had a disturbing trend with respect to the number of black administrators who are coming in the TDSB to discuss their experiences around the fact that anti-black racism is a big part of what they’ve had to deal with in their professional journeys.” The TDSB has decided to initiate a separate review to examine the reports of these human rights complaints by these black administrators.

There are many issues that arose; backlog of case files, time it takes to resolve incidents and the inequity that results from attempts to resolve. There are changes coming to TDSB in 2021.