00:00:00.160Finally, a school board has admitted that they're engaging in racist training fully supported by the Ministry of Education and the Ontario Human Rights Commission.
00:00:09.500For me, it's been a dramatic week following the release of my article exposing anti-white training coming directly from the Waterloo District School Board.
00:00:18.120While I'm glad that the board did take responsibility for the training, I'm left with many questions following their muddled and contradictory media messaging.
00:00:26.580Apparently, my article lacked context, but did it?
00:00:29.340I'm Melanie Bennett. This is Disrupted.
00:00:40.620This week's episode is a little bit different because instead of reporting on the story, I became the story.
00:00:47.220And what unfolded after I published my article with the Waterloo Board professional development training was a week of basically censorship and spin,
00:00:55.200the kind of coordinated gaslighting that would make George Orwell raise an eyebrow.
00:01:00.560Let's walk through what happened and you can decide for yourself what this was really about.
00:01:05.480On June 4th, it all started when I published an article for True North on the Juno News platform.
00:01:11.200It covered a leak staff training session from the Waterloo District School Board.
00:01:15.420The session included a slide titled Dismantling Whiteness at W.O., which claimed that the word family had been identified as harmful by racialized students.
00:01:24.140Yeah, family. Most people picked up on that slide.
00:01:26.800Specifically, they meant the nuclear family.
00:01:28.740The slide said that the term implied obedience, hierarchy, and the prioritization of the nuclear family to the detriment of others.
00:01:36.820It's not the first time that the board has had a hard time with words relating to family.
00:01:41.260So here's a little clip of a board meeting where trustees are discussing in May 2025 which words they should use around family to be more inclusive.
00:01:51.320When I did the OPSPA training in one of the modules, it says the term parent is used in this module to represent parents, guardians, caregivers, and all with an interest in a child's education.
00:02:08.780Family is used to embrace the diversity of parental and extended family structures in Ontario homes, including other adults who are caregivers and play an important role in a child's life.
00:02:19.820And so I can see that the ministry has a totally different idea of parent, caregiver.
00:02:28.460It seems to be a big issue with us, and we're using families as a big umbrella term, but there is inconsistencies in all of our policies.
00:02:38.520I suspect if the ministry is giving us a policy, we're using the word parent, but when we use it, we're using the word family.
00:02:47.820So I just wanted to point that out, and then who knows, maybe in the future we'll all kind of get on the same page, but it just looks really awkward.
00:02:58.320I think I'm not currently a part of the policy working group, but when I have sat in, I think the preference is for a more inclusive term wherever possible.
00:03:11.840So we use different terms than the preferred terms if it is mentioned in legislation.
00:03:22.860So for example, for student trustees, it needs to be the parent or the legal guardian who gives consent if they're not of age.
00:03:32.460So we follow the legislation with the wording, but if we're not bound by legislation, we can and should use the more inclusive language.
00:03:44.320Parents are included in families, but so are other forms of families.
00:03:50.460My article went viral. It really did strike a nerve with people and the school board, which ignored my requests for comment before publication, suddenly had something to say, but not to me, of course.
00:04:05.400On June 6th, the Waterloo board issued a public statement claiming that my article lacked context.
00:04:11.860But here's the thing. I did actually ask for context three times to date.
00:04:18.080I gave them every opportunity to clarify or to explain or even to refute the core of my argument made in the article, but they didn't.
00:04:44.400They're not there anymore, which we'll get to, but if you want to see the slides, it is currently posted on my sub stack.
00:04:50.460My article was published on a Wednesday and by the weekend, both my post and the article had received hundreds of thousands of views internationally.
00:05:21.640You can see the pin posts and everything, but the replies are gone.
00:05:24.340If you click on the comments, my replies are all gone and so are all the slides.
00:05:28.980No warning, no explanation, just silence.
00:05:32.300So that evening, the board chair made another public statement during the meeting, again, repeating that they value families, but completely dodging the core of the issue, that this training based in critical race theory is fully in line with the Ministry of Education and Human Rights Commission mandated equity.
00:05:50.600They don't call it critical race theory.
00:05:52.420They call it culturally relevant and responsive pedagogy, which is just education jargon that means applied critical race theory.
00:05:59.420This is important because while they ignore the core point in my article, they admit the material is in fact theirs.
00:06:07.140And if the material is in line with the principles of critical race theory, then disrupting whiteness does in fact require disrupting the nuclear family for equity.
00:06:16.400In a nutshell, the nuclear family is a white cultural norm and in their view, therefore, a dominant cultural norm.
00:06:22.380And dominant cultural norms are said to be oppressive forces that subjugate anyone outside that norm.
00:06:28.040So any dominant, read, oppressive force must be disrupted and dismantled.
00:06:33.620I'd love to have that conversation, but don't take my word for it.
00:06:37.180Here's Waterloo board trustee Cindy Watson asking about critical race theory at the board in 2022.
00:06:44.100I have a notice of motion that both trustee Ramsey and I worked on together.
00:06:47.940I'm going to be moving it and he'll second it.
00:06:52.120So I'll just start with whereas parents fully support equity and inclusion, but have concerns that the critical race theory and or the theory of white privilege are being drawn on to develop anti-racist lesson plans that are being used in WRDSP schools.
00:07:09.740And that staff also provide recommendations that will help support children if they internalize guilt and shame and solutions that will prevent a possible stigma and or bias that could affect the school climate.
00:07:23.180And that parents be provided supplemental material material on the theory of white privilege before their students are taught white privilege and that a letter be written to the minister of education about parental concerns regarding CRT and or the theory of white privilege that are being taught to their children.
00:07:44.820On June 10th, the director of education, Scott Miller, appeared on the Mike Farwell show, a radio show on City News.
00:07:51.640Sure. And I think what I'd like to start with, Mike, is just one is the certainly families, parents, caregivers, our partners in education.
00:08:00.100And in my career, which is spanning close to 30 years now, that that is just always been the case.
00:08:04.180So I first, you know, how this was received, want to apologize to community and if that's if how they received it and certainly the context that they received it within.
00:08:14.080I think those are important things just to start with and have always appreciated the feedback, the engagement and the support of our many families and parents and caregivers.
00:08:23.000The director apologized, but he didn't apologize for the training.
00:08:29.160It sounds like he's apologizing for the fact that I published it from a critical perspective.
00:08:33.600The director confirms that the board's work is aligned with the ministry directives and the Ontario Human Rights Commission policies.
00:08:40.060And he's right. He says that equity work is difficult because not everyone's going to accept it, though.
00:08:45.640What we've learned, Mike, certainly over time and as we've engaged in this work specifically looking at and dismantling racism in all its forms and ultimately in all of our schools is is a recognition that in some of our teachings previously in language that's been used,
00:09:02.300it really made it difficult for people who are who are receiving that learning to engage in.
00:09:07.840And in some cases, that sense of this feeling and I'll say certainly from from our white staff that they they would they would step back and and and worry and and have some concern and potentially even fear or want to defend that, you know, that's not who I am and so forth.
00:09:24.940So what we really strive to do is as we have looked about look at our professional learning, how we're engaging in any of our anti-racism work is how are we providing opportunities that allow people to make a connection that allow that allow our staff to engage in conversation that will allow them to see a different perspective,
00:09:45.100to see a different way while at the same time really being learners and really trying to take that emotion away in some cases, because people who enter those learning spaces with high emotion really aren't in a place to learn.
00:09:58.480And and we recognize that some of the language that that people will hear whenever we're talking about racism and that that it will be something that does does allow for high emotion.
00:10:10.380And so how we shifted our work in that we're trying to find different ways to allow people to come into that conversation while at the same time recognizing the need and the urgency to make changes to some of our systems so all of our students can can truly be successful and achieve at their highest level.
00:10:27.280So that's the message. The problem isn't the ideology. The problem is you.
00:10:33.020I invited the director to come on to this show on to disrupted, but I haven't heard anything. The same thing with the Mike Farwell show. I reached out. No response on June 11th. The board chair made it Radlin appeared on CBC radio for an interview.
00:10:49.920What do you think that needs to happen now going forward to make sure these kinds of rumors, you know, don't get out of hand like this?
00:10:56.420It's very hard to answer that, Craig, because right now we, you know, we live in a society where media communication is instantaneous, where people have access to all information and are free to disseminate it as they want to.
00:11:15.420A rumor. Really? Because why did the board, including Radlin admit multiple times that the slides were real? So which is it? Is it real, but misleading? Is it fake, but real? Or is it just inconvenient? Is it that my criticism of critical race theory in education is real? Or is it fake?
00:11:37.420I certainly think that the initiatives that our board does around, you know, truth and reconciliation, around equity, about gender identification and orientation, I'd certainly think that that is a lightning rod for many groups that have differing opinions. And Craig, this is a democracy. So, you know, differing opinions will exist and are welcome.
00:12:03.420Maideth Radlin claims that the Waterloo board is open to different views and is transparent. But are they transparent and accepting of alternative voices? I took the time to speak with Christina Barrios Fernandez, a parent who's been trying to get the board to address ideological overreach for quite some time.
00:12:21.420So, so rather than saying that she is open to any questions and she's open to transparency, the board is open to transparency. So I would say, let's, let's hold them to that. Let's ask for all of the slides.
00:12:34.420Why not let people decide if they believe it's right or wrong? This is what the board does as well, right? Instead of showing you, they'll tell you that what to believe and how to think about it without showing you the information.
00:12:50.420So let's just show us the information and let us decide for ourselves. And another point of transparency, I would say, because this is right on line with this, is to bring the draft out that they're currently working on for the anti-racism policy that is going to be, they're planning on it being ratified in the beginning of the next school year.
00:13:09.420I will say that I was part of that consultation because that's something they do with the board. They'll say we already did consultation, right? They literally asked us, they asked us not to share these slides.
00:13:22.420I was part of the consultation for PIC, the parent involvement committee, and we were not to share any of the slides because it's a draft. A couple of us just said, we don't believe this is okay. I mean, this is public.
00:13:37.420We ought to have public consultation on this. Why not make it open and let people decide what they want and have their feedback come to you. But this is why, because they want to keep it hush hush.
00:13:49.420And then they ratify it. And then when people have a problem with it, after the decision's already been made, they said, oh, well, we've already, where were you? We already did parent consultations.
00:14:02.420We already had different groups. So I know I was one of the parent groups as PIC.
00:14:08.420We want to know what the other four to five groups were, because there were four to five groups being consulted.
00:14:14.420We want to know how many people in these groups and which groups they were being consulted for an anti-racism policy.
00:14:20.420And I would implore people to take a look at what that policy is. And I would encourage the board to share that if they're being honest about wanting to be transparent and wanting it to be a democracy.
00:14:33.420Because that's the other thing Radlin keeps on mentioning. It's democracy now. This is a new term she continues to use.
00:14:39.420This is a new thing that she's doing. And it's, yeah, you say it's a democracy and everyone gets their views.
00:14:46.420But the state continues to do as they see fit, even though I would say the majority is not okay with what you're doing.
00:14:55.420So they don't want the consultation because it would definitely show it's the same with the school, the school books, with the inappropriate sexualized material, the highly sexualized material.
00:15:09.420I say, okay, listen, if this is what, because we're in a democracy, if this is what the parents want, then so be it.
00:15:17.420I need to make a decision for myself and my family. Am I staying? Am I going? Am I going to try something?
00:15:21.420Am I going to keep advocating? What are we going to do, right?
00:15:25.420But they don't want everyone to know exactly what's going on, because then they would know how many people are against it, right?
00:15:33.420So, yeah, it's not honest. It's not honorable. It's incredibly deceitful.
00:15:41.420And I really highly encourage people to just think critically about it, because it literally is eroding.
00:15:51.420The state would love to have us believe that our rights come from legislation.
00:15:56.420And in order for them to do that is for them to have us forget that we have God-given rights or birth rights.
00:16:04.420I did try to reach out to the CBC, but you guessed it.
00:16:10.420On June 13th, the CBC published a written article that does name Juno News and does show the article,
00:16:16.420but it seems that it's for the purpose of discrediting me.
00:16:20.420The author framed my work as part of the parents' rights movement, invoking religious studies academic from Mount Royal University,
00:16:27.420suggesting that criticism of critical race theory is linked to fringe ideologies and religious extremism.
00:16:34.420Interesting. What even is the parental rights movement?
00:16:37.420There are parents advocating for themselves, for sure.
00:16:41.420They come in all different shapes and sizes, including religious, but also not religious, too.
00:16:46.420They could be liberal. They could be conservative.
00:16:49.420I've met many of them. But from what I can tell, there's no large hive mind behind a movement directing it all in a religiously extreme fashion.
00:16:57.420While the CBC did touch on the core argument from my article, critical race theory, they completely failed to engage with the facts.
00:17:06.420It's just gaslighting. They don't say that I'm wrong because I'm not.
00:17:11.420The funny thing is, though, if they're trying to imply that I'm a religious extremist, I'm not even religious.
00:17:17.420I'm agnostic at best. I'm just a nerdy vanilla liberal from 20 years ago.
00:17:23.420Apparently, now that makes me part of a dangerous network of religious extremists.
00:17:29.420Oh, and by the way, I'm always ready and willing to provide context about my work to the Waterloo board and to journalists covering my story.
00:17:38.420Just saying. OK, let's take a pause here.
00:17:42.420We've seen the board issue statements.
00:17:44.420We've seen the director go on city news radio.
00:17:47.420We've seen the chair speak to the CBC.
00:17:50.420We've seen journalists write stories about me.
00:17:52.420We've seen academics provide analysis about me and none of them have responded to me.
00:17:58.420None of them have responded to my requests for comments.
00:18:01.420So I'm curious how many views are the legacy media getting these days?