Recently, the Toronto District School Board (TDSB) has become a national hotbed of controversy and the subject of much debate in regard to its wide-ranging approach to religious accommodation.
The School Board, in the implementation of its Challenging Homophobia and Heterosexism curriculum, has made it clear that parents will be refused if they request to have their children exempted from course material that is in conflict with their religious beliefs. The strict prohibition on exemptions for children whose parents want to teach sexuality or morality from their own perspective and perhaps at later ages, completely disregards parental authority. The school board holds that any such accommodation would violate the school board’s own Human Rights Policy. Interestingly, the policy itself recognizes the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms guarantee of religious freedom as well as the reality that along with sexual orientation, disability, gender and others, that creed (faith) can be a ground for which someone is discriminated against.
One of its schools, Valley Park Middle School, has been accommodating its Muslim students by permitting them to conduct 30 minute prayer sessions in the school cafeteria on Friday afternoons. The school contributes no money to the meetings. The Canadian Hindu Advocacy group has written a letter to the TDSB asking that the prayer sessions be stopped as they feel it violates the principles of secularism. Gerri Gershon, a trustee with the TDSB responded to the complaint by saying “this is so sad…this is part of our religious accommodation policy.” Shari Schwartz-Maltz, communications manager for the TBSD cited, in her response, that the Ontario Human Rights Code mandates accommodation of religious practices.
Two very different responses to requests for accommodation, aren’t they?
But are school boards really required to accommodate parents’ and students’ religious beliefs? Both Canadian and international law seem to indicate that that is the case. According to The Universal Declaration of Human Rights, parents have the right to choose the kind of education that shall be given to their children and they can ensure that the religious and moral education of their children is consistent with their own beliefs according to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights.
In Canada, parents are guaranteed the “fundamental freedoms” of conscience and religion under The Charter of Rights and Freedoms, and the Supreme Court of Canada has affirmed that as Canadians, they are free to declare, manifest and practice their beliefs. And when it comes to conflicting Charter rights, the Supreme Court of Canada has made it clear that “one right is not privileged at the expense of another.” There is a level playing field among rights.
And up until last year, it seemed that in Ontario, parental authority was respected by the province. In fact, bold and unequivocal promises were made from the offices of the Ontario Minister of Education and the Ministry of Education. In 2008, then Minister of Education Kathleen Wynne stated that “should a component of any course conflict with a religious belief held by a parent or a student aged eighteen or older, the right to withdraw from that component of the course shall be granted.” In April 2010, Gary Wheeler, a spokesman for the Ontario Ministry of Education stated that “if there is a component of any course, in conflict with the personal beliefs of the parents, something they don’t believe in, the parents can withdraw the student from that component of the course.”
Given the legislation, jurisprudence, and earlier statements made by the province, I sincerely hope that the TDSB sees clearly its duty to fairly and equitably accommodate its students’ and parents’ religious beliefs. As I stated in an interview yesterday, as the TBSD accommodates Muslim students, I hope it extends the same consideration to Christian students and their parents when they request it.
Failure to do so would leave the TDSB vulnerable to not just public scrutiny and criticism, but likely to legal challenges.
This blog was originally posted at Holy Post.