I have written so many posts that start with New HR decision that it’s starting to sound ridiculous.
So, yes this is another new one. I know we just had a new one a couple of days ago.
I can’t tell you how exciting this is. This is the month of April, only four months into 2025 and we are already at 5 decisions with more to come. This is going to be quite the year!!
Is the Ministry of Education and Child Care paying attention to all of this????
They better wake up!
Here we go.
Decision #5 – This parent is self-representing. They won. The complaint is fully proceeding.
Child (by the Parent) v. School District, 2025 BCHRT 89
This case involves a couple of protected grounds.
[3] The Child identifies as Black and of African race, ancestry and place of origin. The Child has a mild Autism Spectrum Disorder [ ASD ], which the Parent describes as largely diagnosed from his late speech and asymptomatic.
This is a timeliness complaint
What is interesting about this case from an analysis point of view is that there were gaps between the discrimination and multiple allegations were beyond the one-year time limit, and yet it was still accepted.
[25] Having found multiple arguable contraventions of the Code , that are both timely and out of time, it is necessary to next consider whether the late-filed allegations form part of a continuing contravention.
[26] I first considered whether the allegations are of a similar character for the purposes of determining the existence of a continuing contravention of the Code . The School District argues the timely allegations are dissimilar because the timely allegations involve different children at different schools. I disagree with the School District. From my review of the allegations in their entirety, I agree with the Child that they involve the School District’s failure to properly respond in series of altercations where white male students harmed the Child for reasons related to his race, colour, ancestry, place of origin and mental disability. At the same time, the allegations are of a similar character because the Child alleges the School District’s repeated responses to all these incidents were unfair to him for reasons related to the personal characteristics identified. In my view, the similar character of these allegations is not affected in any material way because they occurred at different schools and with different white male children.
[27] I have next considered the existence of gaps between allegations. I have determined that there are no significant gaps for the purposes of s. 22(2) of the Code in this case. I disagree with the School District’s approach to this question by looking at the entire timespan for the allegations in question. In my view, it is more appropriate to look at the length of time between allegations to determine whether they occurred in succession. Here, there were gaps of half of year to about nine months between most of the allegations and these are explained by the somewhat randomness of serious incidents happening when the white male students engaged the Child. The only possibly significant gap in my view, occurred between the November 2019 incident and the Spring 2021 incident. However, this gap is easily explained by the fact that during most of 2020 schools were closed due to pandemic restrictions and the Child was not in physical proximity to the students in question.
[28] Overall, I am satisfied the Child’s allegations from the June 2018 incident to the Spring 2021 incident allegations are of a similar nature in succession to the timely October 2021 incidents allegations. As such, the Complaint is a timely continuing contravention of the Code and it is, therefore, unnecessary for me to determine whether it is in the public interest to allow any late filed allegations to proceed.
There are multiple allegations of bullying connected to racism and what I would label as ableism.
Here is an example.
[13] On October 20, 2021, the Child alleges three higher grade white boys followed him into the bathroom and one of the boys intentionally slammed a bathroom stall door into his face. The Child alleges this incident resulted in him chipping his two front teeth. He alleges the School District principal and vice principal were unmoved by the incident and did not want to report it to the police. The Child alleges the vice principal kept blaming him for screaming and shouting and rolling around on the floor as an attempt to magnify his autism behaviour to justify the other boys’ wrongdoing. Once again, the Child alleges the School District protected the white assailants from receiving any blame for the incident. This allegedly included the School District saying that they did not know which boy had caused the harm to the Child. The Child alleges this incident was a good example of the School District’s staff demonstrating their inclination to favour white children in altercations involving him [the October 20, 2021, incident ]
I encourage everyone to read this case in full.
The other human rights case that was connected to discriminatory bullying is this one. I’ll be adding this case now to that page as well.
Way to go, self-represented parent!