July 11, 2022

Palestinian Community Organization Brings Human Rights Application Against Ford Government, School Boards, Alleging Anti-Palestinian Racism in Suppression of Student Video

The Palestinian Canadian Congress (“the Congress”) has announced today that it has filed a claim with the Human Rights Tribunal of Ontario (“HRTO”) alleging that Doug Ford’s Ministry of Education and two Ontario school boards discriminated against Palestinian students, and the broader Palestinian community, on the grounds of race when it supressed a student video which spoke to the everyday hardship of Palestinians living under military occupation.

“Unfortunately, we are seeing more and more of this type of anti-Palestinian racism in the functioning of Ontario’s schools,” said Congress vice-president, James Kafieh. “When you suppress a video about Palestinian life under occupation, you are sending a very clear message to Palestinian students and their parents – you are saying that they do not matter. We need an action plan to eliminate this racism once and for all,” he said

In or around July 2020, the parent of a student who was taking the Grade 10 Civics and Citizenship online summer school course complained to the York Region District School Board (YRDSB), as well as a number of pro-Israel advocacy organizations, about the content of a student video which she felt was “spreading falsehoods to impressionable teens” regarding the Israel/Palestine issue.

The main points the Palestinian student raised in the video about Israel-Palestine were:

• Palestinians in the West Bank (including East Jerusalem) and Gaza live under illegal Israeli occupation

• The Israeli occupation is violent in nature. Palestinian resistance to the occupation is understandable.

• Many more Palestinians than Israelis have died as a result of the violence related to the Israeli occupation.

• Peace and equality require the end of the Israeli occupation.

On July 21, 2020, YRDSB staff sent an email to the Ministry of Education regarding the use of the video, and by end of day, July 22, 2020, the Ministry and the YRDSB had identified and removed it, citing anti-Semitic content.

Lawyers with the newly formed Legal Centre for Palestine (“LCP”) are assisting the Congress with its application to the HRTO. “We felt this application was important given the rising tide of anti-Palestinian racism in schools right across the country,” said Stephen Ellis. “The government and its friends in the Israel lobby have to understand that Palestinians will no longer tolerate this racism and that a remedy exists for the suppression of this video under the Ontario Human Rights Code. Apartheid Israel should not be directing the Ontario curriculum.”

The application names the Congress, the Ministry of Education, the Simcoe District School Board and the Ottawa-Carlton District School Board as parties.

Send to: The Ministry of Education ; The Minister of Education ; The York Region District School Board ; Ottawa-Carleton District School Board ; and The Simcoe District School Board.

Email Template:

To whom it may concern,

My name is [insert name], and I am writing to you as a concerned [Canadian/Ontario] citizen. I have become aware that a Palestinian student made an educational video on Israel/Palestine as part of the “Speakers Corner” series which you identified as “inappropriate” and removed on July 22, 2020.

I believe that the removal of this video constitutes anti-Palestinian racism. The video in question highlighted key facts all of which are verifiable and highlighted by such important human rights organisations as Amnesty International (2022), Human Rights Watch (2021), the United Nations Human Rights Council as well as Israel’s two leading human rights organisations, B’Tselem (2021) and Yesh Din (2020). These facts include:

• Palestinians in the West Bank (including East Jerusalem) and Gaza live under illegal Israeli occupation.

• The Israeli occupation is violent in nature. Palestinian resistance to the occupation is understandable.

• Many more Palestinians than Israelis have died as a result of the violence related to the Israeli occupation.

• Peace and equality require the end of the Israeli occupation.
  

Our education system should foster critical engagement, not repress it. It should not be designing curriculum for the very suspect needs of the Israel lobby. Your duty should be to student safety, engagement, and learning.

Furthermore, the response to the student’s video by various levels of school administration, boards, and governments reflect troubling anti-Palestinian, racist attitudes. Palestinian students have a right to be heard. Telling Palestinian stories is not anti-Semitic nor is being critical of the government of Israel.

I am appalled by the role you played in suppressing a Palestinian student and in depicting the factual information he provided as false and anti-semitic. By suppressing the video, you are setting a dangerous precedent and I am worried for the future of our students’ education.

I hereby demand of the school boards and Minstry the following: (1) a public retraction of prior statements mischaracterizing the student video; (2) a public apology for the suppression of the video; (3) the reinstatement of the video to its position in the Speaker’s Corner resource; (4) a comprehensive curriculum review to ensure that Palestinian perspectives have not been discriminatorily excluded anywhere; (5) an immediate cessation to all cooperation with organizations that actively lobby on behalf of the government of Israel, a government that has faced consistent and credible reports that it commits the crime of apartheid against Palestinians in lands under its control; and (6) a requirement that all Ministry and Board staff undergo training on anti-Palestinian racism.

Best,
[your name]