Excerpt: Intolerance, ignorance and one girl's pain
January 11, 2008
From the report on school safety issued by the Falconer panel:
"In October 2006, several C.W. Jefferys students approached a female teacher and confided to her that they believed a young, Muslim, female student had been sexually assaulted by a group of male students in the second floor boys' washroom. The students came forward because they were concerned that the boys involved were targeting girls who were unpopular and isolated.
The teacher and the three students reported the incident to one of the vice-principals. Contrary to TDSB policy, the police were not notified about the incident, nor were the young woman's parents informed. One administrator has claimed that there was a concern, due to the young woman's ethnic background and religion, that she would be the subject of abuse by her parents if they were to become aware of the incident.
As students in the school heard about the incident in the boys' washroom, the female student became the subject of intense sexual harassment and ridicule by other students. Although some steps were taken to curb this abusive behaviour, the bullying continued.
Eventually, the young woman was transferred to another school at the request of both the young woman and her father.
No steps were taken to remove the alleged perpetrators from the school."
(In June 2007, the panel learned of the incident and reported it to the board, which called police. The principal and two vice-principals at C.W. Jefferys were placed on home assignment and six young men were later charged.)
"Unfortunately, an analysis that is alive to the relationships between gender, race and class has not generally informed school safety research or policy. Rather, the majority of work on school safety tends to use a gender-neutral approach, and concentrates most of its efforts towards addressing the types of violence that are perceived to occur primarily between male students. As such, `guns and gangs' concerns receive a disproportionate amount of attention, funding and intervention as compared to the types of violence that young women experience, including the gendered violence, such as the sexual exploitation of women, associated with gang activities."
Toronto Star