The lawyer representing an ousted Ontario high school student is appealing to the courts after a school board defended his expulsion for reasons they refused to disclose to the public.On December 18, 2023, a committee of three trustees of the Renfrew County Catholic District School Board ruled against Josh Alexander’s appeals of the suspensions and exclusions imposed on him during the 2022/2023 school year by the principal of St. Joseph’s High School.Alexander was a Grade 11 student at St. Joseph’s in Renfrew, ON until he was suspended, issued a trespass notice, and “excluded” for the entire remainder of the 2022/2023 school year by the principal of St. Joseph’s, Derek Lennox.Alexander expressed his Christian beliefs, during class debates and on social media, that there are only two genders, that students cannot switch between genders, and that male students should not be permitted into girls’ washrooms. St. Joseph’s is a public Catholic school governed by the Renfrew Catholic School Board.Alexander's lawyer and Liberty Coalition Canada’s Chief Litigator, James Kitchen has filed an Application for Judicial Review to the Ontario Superior Court of Justice in an effort to have the decision overturned."Kicking Josh out of school and having him arrested for expressing his Christian beliefs is, among other things, unlawful religious discrimination," Kitchen said in a press release.Kitchen appealed Principal Lennox’s decisions to suspend and exclude Josh from school. The appeals were heard — in secret — by three school board trustees on November 15 and 17 2023. The three trustees ruled against Josh, but ordered the reasons for their decision be withheld from the public. The trustees cited “the importance of privacy" as the reason for the secrecy, even though identified in the decision except Josh."Filing the court application will not only hopefully result in holding the Renfrew Catholic School Board trustees accountable before a court of law for their decision to deny Josh’s appeals, but will also defeat the trustees’ attempt to keep the reasons for their decision secret," said Kitchen in a press release."In the coming weeks, Liberty Coalition Canada will work to provide the public with not only the trustees’ absurd reasons for ruling against Josh, but also all the material submitted by Josh to the trustees that they ignored in arriving at their decision.""Readers who want to see this judicial review heard by the courts can donate to the Liberty Defense Fund."
