LILLEY: College of Teachers acts against teacher for denouncing Hamas

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For years radicals have been trying to insert themselves into our education system.

These are the people who teach that 2+2= racist. That’s not a joke; it’s something that happened.

Now, our education system and the organizations that support it are being used as ways to bring the conflict in the Middle East into the classroom.

In a notice filed two weeks ago, the Ontario College of Teachers announced that they would be holding a disciplinary hearing into award winning teacher Lisa Levitan. One of the reasons Ms. Levitan was being considered for disciplinary action were social media posts she made saying Hamas supporters don’t belong in Canada.

That’s not a joke, nor is it an exaggeration, it’s right in the document issued by the College. They state that Levitan posted on X in October 2023, just after the Hamas attacks on Israel, “that those who celebrated or empathized with Hamas terrorists and/or their cause did not belong in Canada and/or should be deported.”

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Let’s be clear about something: Hamas is a terrorist organization that on Oct. 7, 2023 massacred more than 1,200 in an unprovoked attack that broke an existing ceasefire. On that day, Hamas fighters kidnapped more than 250 people, 58 of them still held hostage. They desecrated bodies, killed children and raped women.

I agree with Levitan that people who support those actions don’t belong in Canada; they don’t share Canadian values. Yet Levitan is being disciplined over social media posts about a terrorist group – it is sick and twisted and a display of how radical politics are taking over the system.

Levitan had been an exemplary teacher with the Ottawa Carleton District School Board. She was given the 2022 Anti-Racist and Equity Activism Award by the Elementary Teachers’ Federation of Ontario, now she’s no longer with the board but the disciplinary action continues.

Meanwhile, this same College declined to pursue disciplinary action against another teacher at the Ottawa Carleton District School Board who posted about supporting attacks on Israel. The teacher, whom the College declined to take action on, said that Palestinians are entitled to “resist occupation by all available means.”

All available means is how people justify terrorist attacks and the horrors of Oct. 7. To the Ontario College of Teachers, a teacher supporting Hamas on X is acceptable, but saying terrorist supporters don’t belong in Canada is an offence that will see you dragged before the committee with the threat of losing your licence to teach.

Disciplinary action by the College is handled under the Ontario College of Teachers Act, a provincial statue. As is often the case, it might be wise for the Ford government and Education Minister Paul Calandra to start making some inquiries about what is going on at the College.

Most teachers are great people who go to work each day trying to just do a good job educating the next generation. There has long been an activist group with a different agenda, the kind who bring their personal politics into the classroom.

This group causes no end of headaches for school principals, ministry officials, and at times the education minister. Provincial cabinet minister Stephen Lecce said when he was education minister, dealing with the radical activists was like playing whack-a-mole. As soon as you dealt with one, another showed up.

Now it appears the game of whack-a-mole needs to be taken into the offices of the Ontario College of Teachers. They are showing a clear political bias in how they deal with disciplinary complaints, a bias that can’t be allowed to continue.