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.
Please share this
No comments:
Post a Comment