Anti-racism coach accused of bullying director who later died welcomes review

TORONTO-an anti-racism coach accused of denigrating a Toronto head coach who later died by suicide welcomed a review launched by Ontario’s education minister, saying the allegations against her are false and mischaracterize what happened during two training sessions.

Kike Ojo-Thompson, the founder and CEO of a diversity consultancy group-whose listed clients include large corporations, government ministries and national media organizations-said she will fully cooperate with an investigation launched by Minister Stephen Lecce into the 2021 hearings she facilitated for the Toronto District School Board.

“We believe the Ministry of Education is best positioned to investigate this matter to get to the bottom of what happened to the Toronto District school board after our workshop ended over two years ago,” Ojo-Thompson wrote in a blog post on the KOJO Institute’s website on Thursday.

Richard Bilkszto filed a lawsuit against the board in April, claiming that the hearing and its aftermath destroyed his reputation. Bilkszto, who went on to receive TDSB contracts after his retirement in 2019, claims supervisors did not intervene and later retaliated against him when Ojo-Thompson allegedly implied he was racist and humiliated him in front of colleagues after disagreeing that Canada was more racist than the US.

None of the charges have been proven in court and the TDSB has not responded directly to the allegations. The Board released a statement Thursday saying it hired an outside group to lead an investigation into the circumstances surrounding Bilkszto’s death.

Bilkszto’s lawyer confirmed last week that he died by suicide on July 13. He was 60 years old.

His case has since attracted international attention and has been seized upon by a number of prominent right-wing commentators who have sought to bring diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives back to Canada’s largest school board.

Experts have warned against linking suicide to any single circumstance or event.

Ojo-Thompson called Bilkszto’s death a tragedy and expressed condolences to his family. She said she only learned of the lawsuit in June when she was reached for comment by the media.

The incident, she said, was weaponized to discredit and suppress diversity, equality and inclusion work.

“While right-wing media coverage of this controversy is disappointing and led to our organization and team members receiving threats and vitriol online, we will not be deterred from our work in building a better society for all.”

The lawsuit shows Bilkszto pushed back when Ojo – Thompson-citing Canada’s failure to reckon with its anti-Black History, its continued celebration of the monarchy, and her experience living in the United States-said Black people’s experience of racism in the country was worse than in the U.S. Bilkszto, who cited his time as a student teacher at Buffalo, disagreed and made reference to Canada’s access to health care and public education, according to the lawsuit.

He said it would be” a tremendous disservice to our students ” to say Canada was as bad as the U.S., according to the lawsuit. Ojo-Thompson responded, ” We’re here to talk about anti-black racism, but you in your whiteness think you can tell me what’s really going on for black people?”

The lawsuit shows that Bilkszto said Canada was a fairer society, while acknowledging its anti-black racism. Another Kojo Institute consultant then allegedly intervened and said the session was not a place to be apologists for any of the venues.

The lawsuit alleges that Ojo-Thompson brought up the exchange at a follow-up hearing a week later as an example of the ways white supremacy is sustained through resistance.

Bilkszto complained to supervisors exchanges at training sessions amounted to harassment in the workplace, according to the lawsuit. He began a medical leave shortly after the training sessions and was diagnosed with second anxiety about a Workplace event. A workplace safety and Insurance Board case manager admitted his claim of work-related stress and granted employment loss benefits covering about seven weeks, finding that he was fit to return to work in July 2021, according to a copy of the VANCSIB ruling provided by his lawyer.

Ojo-Thompson says she was never contacted by the company, despite the case manager concluding that her behaviour amounted to bullying and harassment in the workplace.

“Neither representatives of the Toronto District School Board, nor the judges of the VANCSIB contacted any members of the KOJO team about the false claims that were being made about our work. It is strange that a government agency with judicial authority would not consult with all named parties to a dispute,” she said in the statement.

After Bilkszto was released for work, the lawsuit alleges that the TDSB “failed or otherwise refused” to reinstate him as director of an adult Learning Center, where he had taught contractually since September 2020, and revoked a separate contract that was set to begin in March.

Reached for comment on Friday, his lawyer Lisa Bildy said she ” was not inclined to adjudicate this case in the media.”

“We have the full recordings of the hearings, which I expect will be released in due course-certainly in the course of court proceedings, should the family decide to proceed with them,” she wrote in an email.

The incident marked a turning point for Bilkszto, according to a statement from his family separated from Bildy last week.

After his experience with the board’s” equality agenda”, the statement says Bilkszto began advocating a more”equity-focused” approach.

He noted his opposition to TDSB’s recent move to bring in a lottery system, rather than requirements such as test scores or auditions, to admit students to programs and schools specializing in fields such as the arts or athletics. The board says it undertook the change in part to reduce barriers to government-funded programs and ensure they reflected the city’s diversity.

Bilkszto also helped found the Toronto chapter of a U.S.-based group that regards itself as a non-partisan civil rights organization that supports a “color blindness” approach to race, or what attempts to be reused as “color transcendence”. Bildy, a former staff attorney at the Justice Center for Constitutional Freedoms who has been outspoken against Dei training, is a member of its advisory board.

The group, the foundation against intolerance and racism, has challenged U.S. universities that pursue positive actions or racially conscious policies, such as training programs directed at BIPOC teachers.

This report by Canadian Press was first published on July 28, 2023.