The education ministry review announced more than a year ago into the circumstances leading to the death of beloved Toronto principal Richard Bilkszto was a complete and utter sham, documents obtained by True North show.
While those in the education community, who mourned and commiserated with the much-loved principal, were led to believe that the ministry would do something about the destructive impact of DEI ideology, ministry bureaucrats did nothing more than keep the charade of a review going for months and months.
A 120-page FOI response indicates that ministry bureaucrats spent considerable time over a year covering their butts in response to media requests, sending many e-mails back and forth that accomplished nothing, accepting and subsequently ignoring input from interested parties and kowtowing to the ministry’s DEI bureaucrats from the Kathleen Wynne era.
In the end, they produced nothing.
The same goes for the alleged Toronto District School Board review of the circumstances leading to the tragedy.
Bilkszto took his own life last July.
Both his lawyer and his family said the 24-year principal was dealing with tremendous stress after being humiliated at two DEI training sessions by “race expert” Kike Ojo-Thompson—hired by retiring education director Colleen Russell-Rawlins (who beat it out the door for vacation on Sept. 18, six weeks before her official retirement date).
His suicide came just weeks after he’d filed a $750,000 lawsuit against the TDSB – a lawsuit that has been on hold since his death.
Preaching her anti-black racism dogma, the DEI consultant singled out Bilkzsto repeatedly at two sessions in the spring of 2021 for daring to challenge her.
She called him a “white supremacist” and berated Bilkszto in front of 200 colleagues, claiming that he, in his “whiteness,” thought he could tell her what’s going on for black people.
Even though a 2021 WSIB report called Ojo-Thompson’s conduct “abusive, egregious and vexatious,” the TDSB’s anti-racism brass continued to ostracize and silence him.
Two weeks after his death, former education minister Stephen Lecce announced — to great fanfare —a review into “options to reform professional DEI training to make it free of harassment and intimidation.”
Torontonian Michael Teper, an FOI expert, put in his request this past summer asking for all education ministry records relating to the investigation/inquiry/ review of the death of Bilkzsto as ordered by Minister Lecce on or about July 25 of last year.
He said he provided the results to True North in the interest of “full disclosure and transparency.”
It was shocking to review what came back.
When Bilkszto first passed away and the ministry was asked for comment by several members of the media, it took two days and five bureaucrats to craft a four-line response.
One of those bureaucrats, the ministry’s communications advisor Ingrid Anderson — whose name is all over these FOI documents — did not respond to repeated True North requests for comment over nearly two weeks.
Ditto for Edyta McKay in Minister Jill Dunlop’s office.
On July 25 of last year, the FOI documents show that in response to those media inquiries, Anderson crafted a response for Lecce, offering his “heartfelt condolences” to Bilkszto’s family and friends.
”This tragic incident only underscores the need for greater accountability of school boards and the necessity to ensure professional training is free from harassment and intimidation,” Lecce’s statement said.
”I have tasked my officials to review what happened in this instance in the TDSB …and to bring me options … to strengthen accountability on school boards so this never happens again.”
Evidently it was all smoke and mirrors.
On page 46 of the FOI response, an issue note says the ministry was “exploring” options to review anti-racism training in Ontario’s publicly-funded school system to ensure ”consistency” across all boards.
There are several meetings and e-mails back and forth about potential reviewers — always including the very bureaucrats who would have an agenda to keep the education equity units alive.
There are actually two: The Education Equity and Governance Branch and the Education Equity and Board Governance Branch.
For example, Rachel Osborne, director of education equity whose salary jumped from $137,103 to $172,511 in five years, was consulted repeatedly.
Anusha Tikaram, Manager, Equity, Leadership and Accountability (the latter is a joke) and Amanda Dimilta, Senior Policy Advisor in the same Secretariat, were also involved in the alleged review.
Patrick Case, hired under Wynne’s reign as assistant deputy minister of the equity secretariat, had a huge hand in the review/non-review.
Case, who made $200,000 in 2023, had close ties with Russell-Rawlins and weighed in on the report introducing the director’s vanity project — a Centre for Black Student Achievement.
Under Russell-Rawlins, that centre absorbed millions and millions of dollars and offered black students – only– select opportunities for mentoring and coaching.
Case appears to have left the ministry in the spring of this year.
But a three-page August 2023 briefing note from Case, which may well have likely swayed the higher-ups from doing anything, said that they “remain firm” that professional anti-racism and anti-discrimination training will continue.
“Since day one, we have taken decisive action to counter all forms of discrimination and hate in Ontario schools,” the briefing note says. “We will continue this important work to remove barriers that prevent too many children from reaching their full potential.”
The next point makes it abundantly clear that “comprehensive changes” to the education system – specifically DEI and critical race theory – were aimed at black and other racialized students only.
The briefing note also indicates that Bilkszto sued the school board, alleging his reputation was “systematically demolished” during two anti-black racism training sessions in 2021. It adds that the consultant in question (Ojo-Thompson) said the accusations were false and “mischaracterized” what occurred at the two training sessions.
I heard the tapes of those sessions, as did many others in the media.
I’m not sure there was any mischaracterization whatsoever.
The ministry’s bureaucrats also appeared to work overtime to fend off repeated inquiries from the Ontario Ombudsman and the Office of the Auditor General – which is conducting a review of TDSB finances and should be reporting within a month.
I am not privy to the responses to their inquiries, as that paperwork was removed from the FOI response.
Meanwhile – thinking the minister meant what he said about the review – carefully crafted input came from the Toronto School Administrators Association, TDSB trustee Weidong Pei, the Ontario Principals Council and various administrators and educators urging Lecce to pursue the long overdue review of anti-racism training and the dangerous culture created by DEI ideology.
Several letters were from the heart.
One correspondent – whose name was blacked out for privacy reasons – said he or she was a former TDSB employee also “targeted and harassed” by a principal during anti-black racism training and on subsequent occasions.
“I finally had to quit because I could no longer take the constant harassment and bullying,” the writer said.
“I know many teachers who were bullied and were all too afraid to speak out for fear of repercussions.”
Another teacher, who was harassed for suspending four racialized students after they severely beat another student, said his or her “life has been destroyed.”
Then there’s Ojo-Thompson herself.
Her four-page letter to Lecce – dated August of 2023 – reinforces the need for her work, claiming there are “persistent impacts of anti-Black racism” in Ontario organizations and institutions.
There was no acknowledgement of the pain and suffering she may have caused Bilkszto.
Instead she called the exchanges with him a “teachable moment about the importance of listening to the experience of Black people to understand how systemic racism is experienced by them.”
She also insisted his allegations in his lawsuit were “false” and that the WSIB ruling on her included “damaging language” and “defamatory claims.”
She even alluded to the fact that a review and the WSIB claims could potentially renew the “cycle of systemic racism.”
Ojo-Thomson recently became a partner at Deloitte in its Human Capital Practice.
Russell-Rawlins has left the building and is accountable to no one.
Ditto for Patrick Case.
Stephen Lecce has moved to the ministry of energy.
The education ministry’s overpaid equity bureaucrats have succeeded with their efforts at self-preservation.
The media – which was all over the story a year ago – have moved on to other shiny objects.
And it seems no one will ever be accountable for Bilkszto’s tragic death.
It all makes me so angry and tremendously sad.
