TDSB Fails On Palestine Controversy

By now it’s well known to everyone at the TDSB executive team that Javier Davila’s emails from May 16, 2021 and May 19, 2021 contained no fewer than four links to pro-terrorist websites, including to a pamphlet which characterizes suicide bombings against Israelis as “legitimate … martyrdom operations”, the autobiography of serial airplane hijacker Leila Khaled, to the archived propaganda of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (designated as a terrorist entity by Public Safety Canada) and to an interview with PFLP leader Ghassan Kanafani. 

There’s a real problem with the message the TDSB is sending through differential consequences administered to TDSB staff who commit acts of anti-Black racism (justifiably dismissed from employment within three weeks of the incident) and TDSB staff who create a poisoned working and learning environment by circulating ‘educational resources’ that link to pro-terrorist websites (apparently nothing). 

By not coming clean on why there were no consequences to Javier Davila, and not coming clean about the TDSB’s investigation process, the TDSB is failing in its duties of transparency and accountability as a public institution. 

What’s particularly troubling is that a former Ministry of Education officer named Debbie Kasman has bragged on her website that a letter she sent to each TDSB trustee, in which she accused former TDSB Director Karen Falconer of being potentially biased against Palestinians because she is Jewish, may have had an effect on Mr. Davila’s reinstatement.

There is something very mysterious and rotten about the way this investigation was handled, and the TDSB owes an honest and complete explanation to the community.