When Anti-Racism Training Becomes ‘Vexatious’ Abuse
On the anniversary of Richard Bilkszto’s suicide, a Quillette investigation explores how Ontario’s public school system was radicalised by ‘equity thought leaders’ such as Kike Ojo-Thompson.
Richard Bilkszto (1963–2023) grew up in southwestern Ontario, the son of Polish-Canadian fruit farmers. His first job was in real estate. And he might have continued down that professional path had his best friend’s father not convinced him to try his hand at teaching, having (correctly) predicted that Bilkszto would be a natural fit in the classroom.
After attending teachers’ college in upstate New York, Bilkszto eventually found his way back to Canada. For the last three decades of his career, the soft-spoken educator worked for the Toronto District School Board (TDSB), at first as a classroom instructor, and then as a vice-principal and principal.
Jonathan Kay
Bilkszto’s professional philosophy was shaped by an early stint at an inner-city school in Buffalo, NY. There, he observed how a skilled and attentive educator could positively transform the lives of underprivileged children. Unfortunately, he also witnessed examples—including some in Canada, later in his career—that showed how racism and other forms of prejudice could alienate a troubled child from schooling altogether.
“I was in situations where a police officer was so rude in talking to a student [suspected of criminal activity that] I had to ask to speak with them outside,” he told Quillette during an interview conducted shortly before his passing. “I’d say, ‘If you’re going to talk to the student like that, you’re going to need to leave.’”
As a gay man who’d come of age when homophobia was still common, Bilkszto had a finely tuned antenna for bigotry. And he began gravitating toward liberal causes early in life. Before moving to Toronto in the 1990s, Bilkszto served as a riding-association president for the youth wing of Canada’s left-leaning Liberal Party, and attended several of its national conventions. Bilkszto was proud of his country, in large part because he believed its political culture was tolerant and enlightened.
Ironically, it was this appreciation of Canada’s progressive nature that caused him to be smeared as a bigot during the last chapter of his career—a trauma that haunted him until his death.
As widely reported in mid-2023, two years after the fact, Bilkszto had been humiliated in front of dozens of his fellow TDSB administrators during a pair of online professional-development training sessions. These seminars, conducted in late April and early May 2021, were led by Kike Ojo-Thompson, a self-described “equity thought leader [who] is renowned for her work and expertise as an anti-racism and anti-Black racism educator.”
