School libraries the latest casualty

Images of empty library shelves are all over the media and people are asking what is going on. Why would so many books be purged all at once, and what exactly were the criteria for removing them?

Let’s look at the second question first. On November 7th, 2019, Education Minister Steven Lecce ordered a review of the PDSB in response to allegations from a well-organized group of community activists and their supporters among the board’s senior administration that the board was “systemically racist”. The activists pointed to the relatively low academic achievement and the high levels of discipline being handed out to black (especially male) students and demanded that the board adopt “anti-racist” policies based on Critical Theory principles being promoted by well known CT practitioners such as Ibram X. Kendi and Robin DeAngelo.

The PDSB review was undertaken by “equality rights” lawyer Ena Chadha, career bureaucrat Suzanne Herbert, and family and estate lawyer Shawn Richard. With this trio doing the review, any hope that it would be a dispassionate, rational, and impartial attempt to ascertain the reason why so many black (mostly boys) students were being unsuccessful in PDSB schools was dashed from day one. But this has turned out to be far, far worse than an opportunity lost.