Former Red Deer, Alta, trustee Monique LaGrange is seeking reinstatement to the Catholic school board after she was expelled from the board last month over a controversial picture she had posted to social media.
LaGrange, who is being represented by the Democracy Fund and lawyer James Kitchen, issued two applications for judicial review to an Alberta court seeking an order quashing the Red Deer Catholic Regional Schools decision and an unconditional reinstatement to the board.
LaGrange was originally reprimanded for a meme that she had uploaded to Instagram of an archival photo of German children waving the Nazi flag juxtaposed with a picture of current-day children waving the Pride Progress flag in a school classroom with the caption “brainwashing is brainwashing.”
In September, the school board censured LaGrange, prohibiting her from attending committee meetings, mandating sensitivity training about the Holocaust and LGBTQ issues, and prohibiting her from representing the board in an official capacity to the public and the media.
She was also asked to apologize publicly for uploading the picture, something her lawyer, Kitchen, said would be impossible for her to do without violating her conscience.
Last month LaGrange’s fellow trustees voted 3-1 to expel her from the board for allegedly violating the sanctions they had placed on her in September.
LaGrange’s court applications state that the original sanction against her was unwarranted because, she argues, she did not violate the board’s code of conduct. Even if LaGrange had violated the code of conduct, the application argues that disqualification as punishment was excessive.
Further, her application argues that Alberta’s Education Act and the supporting common law do not allow democratically elected trustees to be disqualified in this manner.
The allegations have not been proven in court. The Red Deer school board did not respond to a request for comment from True North.
