TORONTO — Twelve Jewish teachers and educators have filed human rights applications against four Ontario school boards and two teachers’ unions, alleging they were ignored and, in some cases, punished for reporting "antisemitism."Michelle Outmezguine, an educator and member of the Elementary Teachers’ Federation of Ontario, is among the applicants. She said the harassment came from colleagues and from fellow union members. “Instead of supporting us, our school boards and unions question our lived experiences, ostracize and silence us, and even enact discipline for speaking up,” she said in a press release. “Though the union’s stated commitment is equity and inclusion, the impact of its action and inaction on Jewish members has been oppressive.”The applications were filed Thursday with the Human Rights Tribunal of Ontario and announced outside Queen’s Park. They name the Toronto District School Board, the York Region District School Board, the Simcoe County District School Board and the Ottawa-Carleton District School Board, along with ETFO and the Ontario Secondary School Teachers’ Federation. Each teacher filed separately and will ask the tribunal to hear the cases together..Lawyer Kathryn Marshall said the claims rest on creed, ethnic origin and ancestry. “For too long, Jewish teachers in Ontario have gone to work facing 'antisemitism,' and when they asked their school boards and unions for help, they were ignored and in some cases faced reprisal,” she said in the release. “The institutions responsible for protecting them must be held accountable.”Marshall told the Toronto Sun that teachers who reported "antisemitism" were disciplined, not believed, and accused of being racially insensitive themselves, and that one educator was publicly reprimanded at a union meeting for trying to speak about it.In an interview with CP24, she said the incidents included swastikas written on chalkboards and desks, students singing Hitler chants in the schoolyard at recess, and teachers being told that handing out books on the Holocaust could be seen as trying to raise money for the Middle East conflict.Each applicant is seeking $150,000 in general damages, which would total $1.8 million if all twelve succeed, plus money for psychological counselling. They also want the tribunal to order enforceable policies written with Jewish community input, adoption of the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance working definition of "antisemitism" already endorsed by the Government of Ontario, and an end to what the applications call antisemitic misinformation.
