Presumed Guilty: The WRDSB Assault on Liberalism

A speech delivered to the "Leave Our Kids Alone" protest at Kitchener City Hall on October 21st, 2023

Note added post-publication: See the video discussing this article here.

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I’d like to begin with an expression of gratitude. Gratitude for my own good fortune – and the good fortunes of us all – for having been born into a time and place that is the beneficiary of centuries of progress following the Enlightenment.

We should indeed be thankful, and not take it at all for granted, that we are still able to freely gather to voice our displeasure with our government – and by government here I am of course mainly referring to our local school boards. We may still freely and openly criticize policies that we disagree with and that we deem harmful to our children. And that we can do this understanding that we may be in error, but nonetheless – at least for now – that is no barrier to our speech.

But we should also recognize that – as so often is the case throughout history, and in many other places around the globe – our free speech is considered a threat by our governments and public sector unions. We see how they are exploiting young people – sending them to try to intimidate us. They call us hateful. They call us bigots. All of the phobias and isms; the whole rap sheet. But we cannot cede ground on truth-seeking. This is the liberal inheritance that we are tasked with preserving for future generations. To freely speak and question, and exchange ideas, this FREE SPEECH is really the foundational right from which all others flow. And all of these other rights are similarly under attack.

So what are these other rights that exemplify a free and open liberal society. Well, how about due process. Or equal application of laws and rules. And this one in particular, the presumption of innocence; I will single this out for special consideration today.

Is it not reasonable for governments to treat citizens as though they are innocent until proven guilty? Have we not long ago settled this? Well, apparently almost every school board in the country has decided that, “You know what, we’re going to just jettison this whole presumption of innocence thing” because it really gets in the way of social justice. And it really interferes with our ability to help children be their true, authentic selves at school.

Now of course many of you will recognize that I’m referring specifically to WRDSB administrative procedure 1235, but many or most school boards have similar policies. This policy AP1235 states that if a student does not wish to inform his or her parents, then the school may proceed to implement a host of psychosocial interventions – including name and pronoun changes – that are brand new and the long-term consequences of which cannot possibly be known. All without so much as a heads up to mom and dad.

Now what does this have to do with presumption of innocence? Well, according to the defenders of this policy, some parents may not agree with these interventions and therefore these parents may harm their children. Now, doubtless there ARE some physically abusive parents. And certainly we don’t want to put at-risk children at even greater risk. But this policy PRESUMES, in the absence of any evidence whatsoever, that parents are a danger to their own children. To structure a policy in such a way that it starts from the PRESUMPTION OF GUILT has to be among the darkest betrayals of parents that any government could possibly implement.

We should all recognize the presumption of guilt as just another aggressive attack on liberal values. And each of us, according to our station, must speak out.

Perhaps I should now return to a more charitable mindset. I think many of us would agree that many advocates of this policy are well-meaning. That they truly have the best interests of children at heart. I think that is true in the vast majority of cases. So let’s extend some charity, and attempt to understand their position. Let’s walk through the logic of this policy AP1235. And try to understand, from a position of extending a long runway of charitable interpretation, how this policy will achieve its aim of protecting vulnerable children from abusive parents.

Let’s ignore the fact that non-abusive, loving parents may be cut off from their children during a confusing and stressful period of time while they are making what is potentially one of the most life-altering decisions possible. And let’s cast aside for a moment the utter humiliation of parents as school administrators and teachers unilaterally exclude them from a conversation that may end up denying them the possibility of experiencing the joy of grandchildren.

Let’s grant them that none of this completely forseeable and devastating collateral damage will occur. And let’s move on to walking through the logic of the policy working from that assumption.

Now, how is this policy supposed to work? If a child adopts a new identity, with a new name or pronouns, and they choose not to inform parents, then who DOES know? Presumably, in the name of compassion and protecting the child from mental anguish and even self-harm, the school policy would be to make sure that everyone at school complies. Does this extend to students in the class, other classes, all students? All teachers and staff? If they go on a field trip to the zoo, are the zoo employees in the loop? What about a visitor coming to class – someone like myself, a university professor coming to talk science? How about contractors? Will a chance interaction with an electrician, or a FedEx delivery person, be governed by this policy?

The point is that all of these strangers are automatically deemed safe while the two people who love and care for this child more than anyone in the world are PRESUMED unfit to trust with this information. Again, this is all done in the absence of any evidence other than the student’s wishes.

This isn’t right. And we should not be afraid to say so.

Now, I’d just like to make one final point about this policy. And that is that we are asking children to engage in deception. To lead a double life. To use one identity at school, and another at home with family. How can this be? Should we not involve parents at the earliest opportunity? Should we not expect a very high bar of evidence of abuse to exclude them? How can we, as a default matter of policy, expect children to manage a double life? How is that lesson in any way remotely healthy or humane?

I thought we’d long ago rejected the idea of encouraging people to stay in the closet. Surely this is among the cruellest things we can do to a person, let alone a child. Now as many great writers have pointed out, when you keep secrets, the truth will always out. There will come moments in your life when you must face this terrible realization. And this takes a devastating toll on your very soul. [As recently pointed out by Douglas Murray] this is beautifully expressed by Oscar Wilde’s description of a prisoner giving a terrible cry as he is being taken from his cell, en route to execution:

And all the woe that moved him so

That he gave that bitter cry,

And the wild regrets, and the bloody sweats,

None knew so well as I:

For he who lives more lives than one

More deaths than one must die

Why do we, as a matter of policy, condemn our children to experiencing more deaths than one?

As a parent, is not the knowledge of one death of our children enough?