LEVY: School trustee on leave with pay after 'dyke' remarks

[spaminator]

LEVY: School trustee on leave with pay after 'dyke' remarks
Sue-Ann Levy
More from Sue-Ann Levy
Published:
February 8, 2018
Updated:
February 8, 2018 10:00 PM EST
TDSB Trustee Sheila Cary-Meagher
A career NDP Toronto District School Board (TDSB) trustee is on leave with pay after the board’s integrity commissioner found her guilty of “discreditable conduct” for using the “dyke” word repeatedly at an expulsion hearing last fall.
At a lengthy meeting Wednesday, her board colleagues — most of them socialist and union-backed — refused to consider a public censure of 30-year-plus trustee Sheila Cary-Meagher, or leave without pay, even though integrity commissioner Suzanne Craig’s report made it clear the trustee’s behaviour was abhorrent.
When asked by a trustee — all of whom seemed to dance around the findings — whether Cary-Meagher should continue to be paid, board chairman Robin Pilkey claimed they have to pay her because she failed to ask “not to be paid.”
According to Craig’s report, the trustee in question started calling an individual she apparently disliked a “dyke” while waiting for an expulsion hearing to commence last Nov. 27. Craig, who delivered a second report Wednesday criticizing Cary-Meagher for comments she publicly made about the board’s communication staff, said Thursday the individual targetted with the “dyke” slur was not a TDSB employee.
In her report, the integrity commissioner says the trustee would not back down, continuing to call the individual a “dyke” and a “bitch” — even after being asked to stop. Cary-Meagher was reported to have said to those in the room who witnessed her comments: “I don’t care.”
Reached by phone Thursday, Cary-Meagher said she put out everything she had to say in a Feb. 2 letter to Pilkey. In that letter, she accepts “full responsibility” for her dyke comments and apologizes “unreservedly” to the people she offended.
At Wednesday night’s board meeting, the board — failing to recognize the irony — passed director John Malloy’s Enhancing Equity plan which, among other things, will provide all TDSB staff professional training in human rights, anti-oppression, anti-racism and how to deal with their apparent biases.
The board — also proving there is indeed a double standard for social justice warriors — didn’t even suggest that Cary-Meagher resign for her egregious behaviour.
There’s been absolute silence on this from the education ministry as well, despite the pronouncement from former education minister Mitzie Hunter a year ago that another troubled trustee needed to step down for her remarks.
Nancy Elgie, who sat on the York Region school board, resigned under pressure last February after she used the n-word to refer to a black parent.
Cary-Meagher also refused comment on whether she should resign as Elgie did.
In another bit of irony, the trustee claims on her website that she’s a “firm believer in ethical behaviour” noting it demonstrates “respect for honesty, fairness, equality, dignity, diversity and individual rights.”
She also contends that she was firmly in support of appointing a new integrity commissioner, which occurred a year ago.
SLevy@postmedia.com
LEVY: School trustee on leave with pay after ‘dyke’ remarks | Toronto Sun

 

[spaminator]

LEVY: The out lesbian a TDSB trustee called a 'dyke' was me
Sue-Ann Levy
More from Sue-Ann Levy
Published:
February 22, 2018
Updated:
February 22, 2018 5:17 PM EST
'Agressive, sarcastic, mocking' comments 2:41
Two weeks after Toronto District School Board trustees let their colleague, Sheila Cary-Meagher, take a paid leave following her controversial “dyke” comments, they’ve finally been forced out of the closet.
The person to whom the 30-year trustee directed her invective last fall — using slurs like “dyke” and “bitch” several times — was me.
According to the thorough report from integrity commissioner Suzanne Craig (on the agenda of the Feb. 7 board meeting), Cary-Meagher was alternately “aggressive, sarcastic and mocking” about the individual’s (my) sexual orientation and when called on it by the principal (one of four staff) in attendance on Nov. 27 indicated she “didn’t care” and even asked the principal if he “hated her (me) too.”
This did not come from the school trustees who attended the same hearing that day — Tiffany Ford and openly gay trustee Chris Moise. In fact, Craig states in her report that the principal was left to challenge Cary-Meagher on her remarks.
As was the case with the many members of the media who covered her slurs, I had no idea to whom she was referring — until Tuesday.
A brave parent, Jackie Davis, wrote a letter to board chairman Robin Pilkey naming me and insisting that Cary-Meagher resign, in the same way York Region trustee Nancy Elgie was forced to do a year ago for using the “n” word to describe a black parent.
At the time a variety of politicians — including then education minister Mitzie Hunter, NDP leader Andrea Horwath and several York Region trustees — pressured Elgie to step down.
But there’s been absolute silence with respect to the slurs uttered by Cary-Meagher, a longtime NDP union-backed trustee who was also subject of a second report and finding of discreditable conduct for comments she made on a separate occasion about the board’s communication staff.
As someone who only gathered the courage to come out 12 years ago, the remarks were offensive and in my view, homophobic. But more offensive is that this is yet again proof of the shameful double standard exhibited by the left-wing media and our left-wing politicians.
If a right-of-centre trustee or politician publicly called our Premier a “dyke” there would be hell to pay.
No one called for Cary-Meagher’s resignation until I contacted them Wednesday. The responses from Ford and Moise, a sycophant of gay trustee Kristyn Wong-Tam, were “too little, too late.”
Moise e-mailed me to say that when the trustee made the “homophobic comments” he spoke up and condemned them.
“Homophobia is never okay, regardless of who makes the comments and who the comments are directed towards…it doesn’t matter what your political stripes are,” he said. “It’s unacceptable.”
Ford defended her actions as chair of that hearing saying she was just “trying to move forward” and suggested Cary-Meagher is quite “combative” when engaged (about her diatribe.)
“At the end we waited for her to leave and went back and apologized to everyone in that room and encouraged the principal to go to the integrity commissioner with it,” she said. “What she said was wrong…I was disgusted.”
Ford feels “absolutely” that she should resign.
Horwath agreed Wednesday the trustee should step down.
“Someone who chooses — and then defends the use of — a derogatory and hateful slur should not be responsible for our schools and children,” the NDP leader said.
I tried to reach both Hunter and Premier Kathleen Wynne, but did not hear back.
TDSB chairman Robin Pilkey said that kind of talk is “highly unacceptable” but reiterated that Cary-Meagher has to choose to resign and she “can’t do anything about it.”
When I reached out to the trustee in question Wednesday she responded: “I deeply regret my lapse of (cct) judgement and inappropriate words. I am truly sorry and recognize it was the wrong thing to say about anyone under the circumstances. I have begun to have conversations with members of the LGBTQ community and…these have been difficult discussions hearing about the impact of my words on longtime friends, colleagues and the community.”
She did not offer to resign.
SLevy@postmedia.com
LEVY: The out lesbian a TDSB trustee called a ‘dyke’ was me | Toronto Sun

 

[Danbones]

But more offensive is that this is yet again proof of the shameful double standard exhibited by the left-wing media and our left-wing politicians.

Well freakin Duh! It isn't like some of us haven't been saying THAT the whole time.

But we are called a$$holes for pointing out the truth...HaHa...

Too bad, because of this type of double standard (like trudie punching that gal in the boobs) we are ALL going to be losers in the long run.

It's standard nazicommie behavior, just crack a history book and look it up.

 

[spaminator]

LEVY: Trustee still on leave with pay over "dyke" comments
Sue-Ann Levy
More from Sue-Ann Levy
Published:
April 4, 2018
Updated:
April 4, 2018 9:23 PM EDT
TDSB Trustee Sheila Cary-MeagherSun files
The Toronto school trustee who’s been on paid leave for two months following her controversial “dyke” comments told me Wednesday she’s not coming back to work until she finishes doing what she “set out to do.”
Toronto District School Board (TDSB) Trustee Sheila Cary-Meagher — the subject of a recent integrity report for calling yours truly a “dyke” and a “bitch” at an expulsion hearing — said she has finished her human rights and prevention of harassment training provided by the board.
But the 30-year trustee said she’s was still “consulting” with groups affected by what she said — parents, education workers, constituents, colleagues and members of the LGBTQ community.
When I suggested she and I meet — since I was the one to whom she directed her vitriol — and engage in a restorative justice practice pushed by her own board, she said, “I think that’s interesting.”
Asked whether she’d agree it to it, she told me she’d “like a little time to think about it.
“It would depend on when, where and why,” she said.
Restorative practice, an Aboriginal process proposed to me by one of her trustee colleagues, is apparently being used by the TDSB in some schools to resolve conflict.
According to board documents, the benefits include “increased mutual respect, inclusiveness, increased empathy of the perpetrator and ability to give (the) victim a voice.”
Although I was serious about my offer, I’m guessing this restorative meet-up won’t happen — considering Cary-Meagher never resigned over her comments let alone apologized directly to me.
Had the same “dyke” slurs been made so publicly by a right-wing trustee about Premier Kathleen Wynne, for example, that person would have been pressured to resign, just as a former York Region District School Board trustee was forced to do a year ago after using the “N” word comment to describe a black parent. At the time, Education Minister Mitzie Hunter and a variety of other politicians ganged up on her, leaving her no option. There was no talk of a paid leave, or harassment training or consulting with stakeholders when it came to former trustee Nancy Elgie‘s fate.
When integrity commissioner Suzanne Craig’s report on Cary-Meagher was presented at a Feb. 7 board meeting, I had no idea the slurs — made on Nov. 27 in the presence of four staff and two other trustees — were about me.
Craig indicated in her report that Cary-Meagher was alternately “aggressive, sarcastic and mocking” about the individual’s (my) sexual orientation and when called on it by a principal in attendance, said she “didn’t care.” She even asked the principal if he “hated her (me) too,” according to Craig’s report.
At that meeting, the board agreed to permit Cary-Meagher to be absent with pay for three consecutive board meetings — the third meeting is April 18.
It was only two weeks after that I learned via a letter to board chairman Robin Pilkey from parent Jackie Davis that the slurs were directed at me.
Pilkey said there’s “no time limit” as to how long Cary-Meagher can be off — meaning she could extend her leave beyond the April 18 meeting.
She said four other trustees have agreed to “cover off” her work and added that she has “no idea” what Cary-Meagher is doing at this point.
“I think Sheila should make some amends to you,” she added, a remark that was unsolicited.
That notwithstanding, I want to make one thing perfectly clear.
I am not as offended by the remarks (doing what I do I’ve grown a very thick skin) as I am by what this yet again proves about the existence of that shameless double standard.
I know the social justice warriors (SJWs) and assorted members of the Liberal-left would shriek in self-righteous indignation had the remark been about one of their own.
All of the politicians who ganged up against Elgie and all the media who covered the integrity report about Cary-Meagher suddenly became silent when they discovered that a right-wing lesbian was the target of her venom.
Who knew the SJWs don’t practice what they preach?
SLevy@postmedia.com
LEVY: Trustee still on leave with pay over “dyke” comments | Toronto Sun

 

[spaminator]

LEVY: Hate means never having to say you're sorry
Sue-Ann Levy
More from Sue-Ann Levy
Published:
April 19, 2018
Updated:
April 19, 2018 5:51 PM EDT
TDSB Trustee Sheila Cary-MeagherSun files
We might call this saga, “Hate means never having to say you’re sorry(to a Conservative.)”
Like an Emperor returning to Rome, Toronto District School Board (TDSB) trustee and avowed NDPer Sheila Cary-Meagher ended her nearly three-month leave of absence Wednesday night with a teary-eyed apology to her fellow trustees.
It was worth an Academy Award–well a nomination, at least.
The 32-year trustee –first asking her colleagues to indulge her if she a got a “bit teary” — reiterated the apology she’d offered them in February when she took her leave for her “objectionable comments.”
The invective — uttered several times during a November expulsion hearing — included the use of both “dyke” and “bitch” to characterize an out lesbian.
I later learned, after Cary-Meagher had gone on paid leave, that the person she was referring to was none other than me.
According to a very thorough report to the Feb. 7 board meeting from Integrity Commissioner Suzanne Craig — in which sanctions were recommended against Cary-Meagher — the NDP trustee was alternately “aggressive, sarcastic and mocking” about my sexual orientation.
She even asked the principal in attendance if he “hated” me, too, says Craig’s report.
But Wednesday night, Cary-Meagher claimed she’d seen the light after completing the TDSB human rights and prevention of harassment in the workplace training.
She said she also “consulted widely” with parents, constituents and members of the LGBTQ community to see what actions would be most appropriate.
Here’s where her apology/re-entry speech got really funny.
She contended that her nearly three-month (paid) leave of absence gave her the opportunity to “reflect” on the impact of her words.
“I will carry forward the valuable lessons I learned,” she said. “I realize that even when one says things without intent, they cause harm … I let myself and my community down.”
OK, let’s stop right there for minute. Let her community down?
It may have escaped her attention and that of her silly seatmate — fellow NDPer Manna Wong who hugged her after she’d finished her two-minute performance — but clearly the 32-year trustee couldn’t have reflected that much or learned that many valuable lessons because she has never uttered one word of apology to the target of her vitriol.
I didn’t hear a single sorry during the three interviews I did with her since Feb. 7 and she has never responded to my April 4 offer to meet to discuss what she said.
As I’ve said in previous columns, I am a tough cookie and well used to being the target of some, shall we say, abuse for my controversial comments.
But frankly Cary-Meagher’s words of apology ring hollow to the point of absurdity and simply prove yet again that she — and so many of her fellow travellers on the political left, including her pal Premier Kathleen Wynne — are not the least bit tolerant, inclusive or equitable in how they treat a Conservative lesbian, never mind anyone with a political bent other than their own.
But there was good news Wednesday night. At long last, Cary-Meagher also announced she’s not running again (Toronto Councillors Norm Kelly, John Filion and David Shiner: Perhaps you should take note).
“I’ve returned (from the leave of absence) to see off the class of 2018, to finish up my projects and initiatives,” she said. “(I will also) wrap up my 32 years of public service that has been focussed on a deep commitment to promoting equity even when it involves facing my own shortcomings.”
As I said, a performance worthy of an Academy Award.
SLevy@postmedia.com
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LEVY: Hate means never having to say you’re sorry | Toronto Sun

 

[Danbones]

So people can't have thoughts and emotion of their own...this is all about preventing free speech and free thought and free action....by those that HATE EVERYONE.

It's called Balkanization.

It's like the way the British government just labeled a welsh vowel joke as hate speech to cover up for being busted in public for lying about the skripal, and syrian, poisonings and gas attacks.