Social justice warrior and Ottawa school board trustee Dr. Nili Kaplan-Myrth has resigned from her role as Ottawa-Carleton District School Board (OCDSB) trustee for Zone 9.Kaplan-Myrth, elected in 2022 for a four-year term, told OCDSB’s committee Tuesday night she is a victim of “toxicity” and “dysfunction.”Since she began the position, she has become notorious for publicly supporting COVID-19 mandates and advocating for the sexual minority crowd. In November 2022, she launched a motion for mandatory masking in schools — a campaign that did not go over well with parents. According to CTV, she allegedly coerced other trustees into voting for the motion, which, after much debate, did not pass. .In September 2023, the board subjected Kaplan-Myrth to a vote of breach of conduct after she told black trustee Donna Dickson not to “vote with white supremacists” because she opposed the vote on the mask mandate.Dickson said Kaplan-Myrth berated her with “extremely insensitive, insulting and disrespectful” text messages.The vote failed, but it wasn’t long until another breach of conduct case arose in December 2023. At a special board meeting called to address Kaplan-Myrth’s actions, trustees unanimously voted to bar her from meetings and committees for 90 days.Kaplan-Myrth dismissed the integrity commissioner’s report and the board’s decision as based on “faulty or incomplete findings of facts” and “fundamental errors.”.In her resignation letter, released Tuesday night, she thanked her constituents and said it was an honour to serve on the board.“I delivered on every campaign promise despite facing vile harassment, defamation, death threats, and vile, unrelenting antisemitism targeting my family and me,” she wrote.Kaplan-Myrth in 2023 filed a complaint with the board that she was harassed online due to her Jewish heritage..“I am resigning because of toxicity both outside and within the Board. External challenges include organized disinformation campaigns, radicalized groups disrupting our work, and chronic underfunding of public education,” states Kaplan-Myrth’s resignation letter.“Internally, the OCDSB suffers from profound dysfunction. It failed to adequately address the Jew hate directed at me, instead demonizing me for calling out its silent complicity. Trustees weaponize Code of Conduct complaints against each other while the Board wastes time and money on legal battles instead of serving students. This dysfunction harms students, staff, and public trust.”
