Lawfare Project seeks information about anti-Semitic high school curriculum

Dear friends,

You may have seen the controversy surrounding an offensive and anti-Semitic video included in the curriculum of a Grade 10 online civics course in Ontario, Canada. Though Ontario's Minister of Education ordered the video to be removed from the curriculum when its biased nature was revealed, it later appeared in a lecture at another school district.

Now, The Lawfare Project, in partnership with RE-LAW LLP, is filing a freedom of information request in order to investigate this video, its origin, and its reappearance in defiance of the Minister of Education's order. Among the answers we seek with this request are how the video got on the platform to begin with, where the video is from, who made the decision to put it up, who oversees the platform and curriculum, and whether there is a quality-control process for this sort of content.

The heavily biased perspective offered in the video is starkly anti-Jewish and deeply offensive to any proud Zionist Jew. The video's speaker spreads harmful misinformation about a Zionist "occupation," including by leveling unfounded accusations of Israeli human rights abuses against the Palestinians. He also paints a grossly inaccurate depiction of a violent and militant Israeli attacking Palestinians without provocation, while Palestinians only "retaliate" against Israel with violence. Inclusion of this video in the curriculum is a barely-veiled attempt to target Jewish students because of their religious and ethnic identity. Zionism is an integral part of the Jewish identity and no student should have to feel targeted or shamed because of their deeply held beliefs. Jewish students must be free to learn in school without facing oppression and hatred because of their connection with the Jewish state.

This attempt to poison young minds with anti-Jewish propaganda is despicable and unbecoming of any educator.

Anti-Jewish sentiment in schools is nothing new, but that is precisely why it is so important to uncover how exactly this video found its way into Ontario's high school curriculum. We must get to the root of the problem, and I can promise you The Lawfare Project will work to do exactly that.

Thank you for being a part of this fight to protect Jewish students from discrimination in schools and to ensure educators are never empowered to oppress the views and beliefs of any minority students.

Keep an eye out for more updates on this developing situation.

Sincerely,

Brooke Goldstein
Executive Director, The Lawfare Project