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Education

New Brunswick premier took just 3 days to ban group giving explicit presentation at schools: docs

Published

1 month ago

3 minute read

From LifeSiteNews

By Clare Maagad

The group, HPV Global Action, had shown the graphic material to students in Grade 6 through Grade 12 (roughly aged 11 to 18) without appropriate parental notification. 

Internal documents show that New Brunswick banned a graphic “sex-education” presentation from schools just three days after parental outcry. 

According to documents obtained by Rebel News, New Brunswick Premier Blaine Higgs took only three days to enforce new pro-family polices after his office was notified of inappropriate material being shown to school children.   

“We now know that Premier Higgs’ office was flagged about the presentation on May 24, 2023,” the report found. 

“Within hours, Higgs took to social media to express his outrage, promising swift action. By May 27, third-party presentations were banned, and a new review process was put in place,” it continued.   

On May 27, the premier shared slides of a presentation given by a third-party group to New Brunswick school children that contained questions about pornography, masturbation and anal “sex.”

The group, HPV Global Action, had shown the graphic material to students in Grade 6 through Grade 12 (roughly aged 11 to 18) without appropriate parental notification.  

“To say I am furious would be a gross understatement,” Higgs declared at the time, adding that the group had been banned “effective immediately.”  

Earlier that month, New Brunswick became the first of now many provinces to promise pro-family legislation to protect children from LGBT indoctrination in schools. 

As LifeSiteNews previously reported, part of the legislation included reviewing Policy 713, the province’s public school Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity policy, arguing that the current policy denies parents their rightful knowledge if their child wants to “change” genders.   

As a result, Higgs introduced a new policy which required parental consent for teachers to use different names or pronouns for students under age 16. It also mandated separate change rooms and washrooms for boys and girls, based on their biology.  

Higgs is far from alone in his fight to protect Canadians from the LGBT agenda. In fact, Alberta and Saskatchewan have recently introduced legislation to uphold parental rights.    

In February, Alberta Premier Danielle Smith announced new legislation that would ban doctors from pharmaceutically “transitioning” children, require parental consent for pronoun changes in school, and bar men claiming to be women from women’s sports.      

Similarly, last September, Saskatchewan Premier Scott Moe announced that he will invoke his government’s notwithstanding clause to protect legislation stating that parents must be told if their child “changes” genders at school; a judge had ruled against the enforcement of the law earlier that day.       

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Education

Fired Alberta Professor Largely Vindicated

Published on October 9, 2024

By

From the Frontier Centre for Public Policy

By Hymie Rubenstein

“There’s no reason why I shouldn’t be reinstated”

An arbitrator has ruled that Calgary’s Mount Royal University (MRU) acted in a “disproportionate” manner in late 2021 in its firing of Frances Widdowson, a tenured political scientist with a specialty in Indigenous issues.

Dr. Widdowson, an outspoken critic of the politically charged but theoretically simplistic notions of the academic culture wars at MRU was dismissed just before Christmas 2021 during what arbitrator D.P. Jones called a “Twitter War” between her and a few activist colleagues opposed to her views.

The hearing took 30 days, over ten months, as 25 witnesses gave evidence. Its main findings were on the appropriateness and fairness of the procedures used to dismiss her, not on the reasons given for her dismissal.

The latter concerned September 2020 comments from Widdowson that far from constituting genocide, aboriginal children gained educational benefits by attending Canada’s Indian Residential Schools, an outrageously scandalous opinion among some at MRU.

Her position on Indigenous issues would certainly have been considered heretical at MRU where extreme pro-indigenous, anti-colonial, anti-white privilege perspectives have long ruled.

Following her dismissal, Widdowson filed ten grievances, eight on procedural grounds and two on substantive ones. In his nearly 300-page decision, Jones threw out the grievances involving the improper procedures employed by the university in its dealings with Widdowson.

On discipline, Jones found that while Widdowson’s behaviour was “just cause” for discipline, her firing was “disproportionate” to that behaviour.

On one of Widdowson’s substantive grievances, Jones ruled that her two-week suspension was disproportionate, ruling that a letter of reprimand be substituted for the suspension.

When it came to Widdowson’s firing, Jones wrote that there was just cause for discipline based on Widdowson’s conduct, but that dismissal was an inappropriate penalty.

However, Jones said that Widdowson’s continued employment with the university would not be viable for several reasons, including Widdowson’s ongoing hostility toward the university and colleagues, witness testimony that stated her return to the university would be disruptive, and her “persistence” throughout the arbitration hearing that several tweets investigated did not constitute harassment.

Instead, the arbitrator suggested, “In my judgment, this is an appropriate case in which to substitute a monetary payment rather than reinstatement with lesser penalties.”

In an interview with CBC News on Friday, October 4, Widdowson said she’s pleased with the arbitrator’s ruling that she was wrongfully terminated but that she continues to be upset about how the arbitration approached the issue of harassment.

“People continue to think that I engaged in harassment, which I did not. I’ve done extensive analysis of the different findings which were put forward by the different investigators,” she said.

“There were four different investigators hired by MRU, and these investigators all had different, contradictory findings. What we need from the decision is for there to be a neutral person who makes findings of facts about this.”

“There’s no reason why I shouldn’t be reinstated,” she said during a phone interview with a national media outlet.

“The people who don’t want me to return to MRU, I don’t work with those people,” she replied.

She doesn’t “work with those people” because she shares nothing with them intellectually.

The irony is that Widdowson is an old-school leftist, a classical Marxist whose views on inequality focus on inter-class conflict having little to do with racial, ethnic, sexual, or gender identity, the preoccupation of contemporary identity politics, also known as wokeism.

Traditional Marxists and disciples of wokeism are both on the left, often the hard left. But they support incompatible paradigms about the causes and consequences of social and economic inequality, hence their mutual loathing.

Widdowson said she is appealing the decision to regain her tenured faculty position. It seems likely, however, that she’ll end up accepting a huge payout instead.

In his ruling, Jones found that although Widdowson has “controversial views on a number of topics … there has never been a complaint about the quality or ethics of her scholarship; she has never received performance management counselling for either her teaching or scholarship; and the University has supported and recognized her scholarly activities.”

Mount Royal officials said, “While the formal process continues, we will have no further comment.”

Hymie Rubenstein is editor of REAL Indigenous Report, a retired professor of anthropology, and a senior fellow at the Frontier Centre for Public Policy.

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DEI

CA school taught 5th graders gender identity, had them teach it to kindergartners

Published on October 3, 2024

By

From The Center Square

By 

Plaintiffs “were especially bothered that they had to push the idea that individuals can select their own gender to a kindergartener, knowing this kindergarten buddy looks up to them as role models and trusts their opinions.”

A California school district allegedly had a teacher teach a lesson and read a gender identity book to fifth graders, then have those fifth graders watch a video version of the book with their kindergarten mentees and teach them the lesson they just learned.

Outraged Encinitas parents are now suing the school district and demanding a notification and opt-out program for all objectionable content; currently, content notifications and opt-outs are only available for the health unit.

The fifth grade students’ parents had first asked to review a health unit with lessons on “puberty, health reproduction, media influences on health habits and body image, hygiene, boundaries and bullying and diseases and their transmission, including information about HIV/AIDS.”

After finding the unit’s  “instruction on gender identity and transgenderism” was “affront to their religious beliefs,” the parents tried to opt out of just the gender section, but were told they would have to opt out of the entire unit, which they did.

But this opt out did not cover the school’s buddy program that pairs older students with the same younger students every week for one class.

The lawsuit says “with the buddy relationships in place and well established, [school district staff] planned a unique event for May 1, 2024. During this “buddy” program, the District would use fifth graders to help kindergarteners learn about gender identity.”

The school district used My Shadow is Pink, a picture book for young children in which a boy “wonders about his gender and how he believes it differentiates from his father’s gender” and says he “loves wearing dresses and dancing around.” The boy wears a dress to school, making the father “anxious and stressed” until he too wears a dress after his son has a difficult day. The father then tells his child, “pick up that dress! Your shadow is pink. I see now it’s true. It’s not just a shadow, it’s your inner-most you.”

Before the buddy session, one staff member said to another, “We might just inspire some sweet things to fly toward their shadow tomorrow,” suggesting the lesson had a desired outcome, according to the lawsuit.

At the start of the session one teacher allegedly read the book to the fifth grade class, which students found unusual because “It was rare for [him] to read any book to them, and he had never read a book to them for the ‘buddy’ program.”

Immediately after, the fifth graders each sat next to their kindergarten mentees, and shown a read-along video version of the book, leading one 5th grade plaintiff to allegedly say “[he] wanted to cover his buddy’s eyes and ears to protect him.”

Next, 5th graders were allegedly told to have their buddies choose a color representing their buddies’ gender, and draw their buddies’ outlines in chalk in that color to communicate “gender was determined by an internal feeling.”

Both plaintiffs “were especially bothered that they had to push the idea that individuals can select their own gender to a kindergartener, knowing this kindergarten buddy looks up to them as role models and trusts their opinions.”

“The blatant promotion of gender identity in the My Shadow is Pink book is self-evident and obvious,” says the lawsuit. “The book is marketed as “a rhyming story that touches on the subjects of gender identity, equality, and diversity.”

A petition to require parental notification for controversial curriculum items at Encinitas Union School District, but the school did not respond to the petition or its concerns, aside from sending a template letter describing the district’s opt-out policy.

The lawsuit is claiming the students’ First Amendment  rights were violated by compelling them to speak messages to kindergarteners that violate their religious beliefs and consciences, and that the school districts’ policy of allowing opt-outs only in some parts of schooling but not in others is a violation of the 14th Amendment. Among other demands, the plaintiffs seek opt out and parental notification policies for “curriculum, activities, or any other instruction related to gender identity or other LGBTQ topics.”

“You have the absolute right to opt your child out of any program out there,” said Lance Christensen, Vice President of the California Policy Center, to The Center Square. Last month, the CPC issued an “opt-out toolkit” explaining to parents how they can protect and expand opt-out policies.

“These parents have the right to not have their children subjected to a radical ideology,” continued Christensen. “We’re talking about elementary school kids. What’s wrong with these teachers, and these schools?”

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