Richard Bilkszto Wiki – Richard Bilkszto Biography

A Toronto school board and education minister announced they will launch investigations Thursday into a professional development training after a former principal Richard Bilkszto committed suicide following a lawsuit alleging emotional distress over the anti-racist trainings and the consequences that followed.

The sessions included concepts from critical race theory. Before his death, Richard Bilkszto, a 60-year-old former principal, sued the Toronto District School Board for emotional distress after attending a training in which he was accused of being a racist. Bilkszto alleged in his suit that Kike Ojo-Thompson, who runs an equity firm called the KOJO Institute, said Canada was racist and had “never counted on its anti-black history.”

When Bilkszto disagreed with the instructor and questioned her comments, he was convicted of appearing to undermine a black woman, the lawsuit says. “We are here to talk about racism against black people, but you in your whiteness think you can tell me what is really going on with black people,” Ojo-Thompson said, according to the lawsuit filed by the Foundation Against Racism and Intolerance. .

Bilkszto did not sue Ojo-Thompson directly, but rather the district. She has denied the allegations in the FAIR lawsuit and did not immediately respond to Fox News’ request for comment. The director also alleged that he was called a “white supremacist” for sharing his beliefs. The fallout from the training catapulted into more issues related to the matter, and the family believes it was a hostile environment that severely affected Bilkszto’s mental health.

Education Minister Stephen Lecce called the allegations raised by Bilkszto “serious and disturbing” on Thursday. A spokesperson told Fox News Digital that his staff will launch a review and submit action items to ensure “this never happens again.” “I offer my sincerest condolences to Richard’s family and friends as we remember an educator who truly went above and beyond for his students,” he added. “No staff member should be harassed while they are at their workplace.”

The family issued a statement after his death, listing the district’s KOJO training as part of the director’s emotional distress. KOJO, who led the training in question, is an equity consultant promulgating critical race theory. CRT argues that society is rigged against certain groups based on skin color. He condemns the idea of succeeding on merit as a “myth” and classifies races into categories of privilege, with whites considered unfairly privileged.

Richard Bilkszto Age

The age of Richard Bilkszto was 60 year.

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Why Richard Bilkszto committed suicide?

Using this lens, its original theorists believed that only current discrimination can combat the deep-rooted systemic oppression that they believe was intentionally built into every social structure and system. “We know that anti-black racism is operating within education because of the results we are seeing for black students,” Ojo-Thompson said. Furthermore, she stated that racism is embedded in all systems and offers consulting to corporations, governments, etc.

During a follow-up session a week later, Ojo-Thompson allegedly recalled his disagreement from the first session and used Bilkszto’s efforts to challenge his claims as a “real life” example of someone supporting white supremacy. . “[N]avigating the whiteness of the education system is a daily struggle,” said Ojo Thomson. “The dominance of whiteness is not natural but the result of legacies. Likewise, the subordination of blackness is not natural either.

Like other examples from KOJO’s CRT, the company’s slide deck on instituting an equity agenda criticizes “Eurocentric/Anglocentric curriculum,” “assimilationist culture,” and “school disciplinary policies.” The slide deck suggests that institutions, such as the education system, can be used to influence society and the district community.

He asked, “How are institutions leveraging their power and proximity to inform the community narrative?” KOJO also calls for the elimination of disparities through “[t]orks that focus on the systemic and structural context.” Ojo-Thompson also believes in another central idea of critical theory, which is that individuals can belong to multiple categories of oppressed groups. The term for the concept is called “intersectionality”.

“With every identity that is subservient due to legacies, we face discrimination and oppression in ways that are intertwined. Each form of oppression impacts the others,” Ojo-Thompson said. He contacted the Toronto district for comment, referring to an earlier statement, in which they announced an “investigation into the circumstances surrounding the tragic death of Richard Bilkszto.”

The district will use an outside agency, King International Advisory Group, to conduct its investigation. “It is our intent that this investigation be conducted in a professional, sensitive, and respectful manner,” the district said. The KOJO Institute previously issued a statement saying, “The death of Richard Bilkszto is a tragedy and all of us at the KOJO Institute offer our condolences to his loved ones.”

He denied all the allegations, adding: “This incident is being staged to discredit and stifle the work of all those committed to diversity, equity and inclusion.” “The KOJO Institute welcomes the review of this matter by the Minister for Education, Stephen Lecce, and will fully cooperate with Ministry officials. We believe the Ministry of Education is in the best position to investigate this matter and get to the bottom of what occurred in the Toronto District School Board after our workshop concluded more than two years ago.”

The anti-black racism workshop at the center of Mr. Bilkszto’s false claims took place in the spring of 2021. It was only in June 2023, through media inquiries seeking our comment, that we learned that the Mr. Bilkszto filed an unserved lawsuit against the Toronto District School Board.”Read More……….