Disturbing new audio depicts the moment a beloved gay high school principal was shamed for standing up to an anti-racism trainer – whose bullying helped drive the teacher to suicide.
Richard Bilkszto, 60, was found dead on July 13 after two years of emotional turmoil stemming from the encounter.
He was devastated when Kike Ojo-Thompson turned on him during a session in April 2021 after he challenged her claim that Canada – where both lived – is more raicst than the US.
Ojo-Thompson – who was paid $7,500 an hour for eight hours of seminars – scolded Bilkszto then and there.
And she referred to him again in the next session as an example of ‘white supremacist resistance’ in newly-released audio clips which also show her laughing while making an example of him.
The late principal’s family say his distress was only heightened when the superintendent of his school district, Sheryl Robinson Petrazzini, further shamed him in a tweet suggesting he was a racist.
The tweet, since deleted, hailed Ojo-Thompson ‘for modeling the discomfort administrators may need to experience in order to disrupt ABR,’ or anti-black racism.
The week after his death, Kike Ojo-Thompson, the diversity trainer, issued a defiant statement which did not apologize for her role in Bilkszto’s death – and even implied that she was the victim.
‘This incident is being weaponized to discredit and suppress the work of everyone committed to diversity, equity, and inclusion,’ she said.
‘We will not be deterred from our work in building a better society for everyone.’
Richard Bilkszto, 60, took his own life in Toronto on July 13 after two years of turmoil following an April 2021 encounter at the school where he was principal. He filed an official complaint and won, and had just filed another suit
Kike Ojo-Thompson, a Toronto-based diversity trainer, cited Bilkszto as an example of ‘white supremacy resistance’
Now, the school board and Canada‘s education minister are investigating Bilkszto’s death and whether the obsession with woke policies may have contributed to it.
Bilkszto, who was gay and single, was said by friends to have devoted his life to teaching, and spent time in a tough majority-black school in Buffalo, New York.
He had recently retired, hoping to travel more, but was convinced to come out of retirement to work as principal of Burnhamthorpe Collegiate Institute in Toronto.
In April 2021, the school district hired Kike Ojo-Thompson, a diversity trainer in Toronto, to carry out four two-hour sessions for school leaders – with her firm, the KOJO Institute, charging $15,000 for each session, according to The Free Press.
The first session was uneventful, but during the second session Ojo-Thompson claimed that Canada was significantly more racist than the United States.
In the audio of the session, obtained by The Free Press, Bilkszto can be heard saying that maybe Canada was not ‘the bastion of white supremacy’ that Ojo-Thompson had made it out to be.
He pointed out that public schools serving Canada’s poorest students are generally better funded than their equivalents in the United States.
Ojo-Thompson turned on Bilkszto, telling him in front of all of the others gathered: ‘As white people, there’s a whole bunch going on that isn’t your personal experience. It will never be. You will never know it to be so. You will never know it to be so.
‘So your job in this work, as white people, is to believe.’
No one stood up for Bilkszto.
After the meeting, Sheryl Robinson Petrazzini, the executive superintendent of education, thanked Ojo-Thompson for enlightening them.
Sheryl Robinson Petrazzini, the executive superintendent of education, thanked Ojo-Thompson for the session which so upset Bilkszto
‘When faced with resistance to addressing Anti-Black racism, we can’t remain silent as it reinforces harm to Black students and families,’ Petrazzini wrote.
‘Thank you @KOJOInstitute for modeling the discomfort administrators may need to experience in order to disrupt ABR,’ or anti-black racism.
She has since deleted the tweet.
Petrazzini has recently been in the headlines, in her new job, for organizing a non-whites only ‘celebration of belonging’ for ‘racialized staff’.
Friends of Bilkszto said that Petrazzini’s tweet hurt him deeply.
Robert McManus, 60, a retired teacher who had been friends with Bilkszto since they’d met at Boy Scouts camp at age 11, said the tweet gave the impression that Ojo-Thompson’s reprimand was endorsed by the school district.
It ‘had a horrible effect on Richard,’ McManus told The Free Press.
Bilkszto’s public shaming was compounded at the third session, where Ojo-Thompson said that his comments were a ‘teachable moment’.
‘One of the ways that white supremacy is upheld, protected, reproduced, upkept, defended is through resistance,’ she said.
She then laughed, and added: ‘I’m so lucky that we got perfect evidence, a wonderful example of resistance that you all got to bear witness to, so we’re going to talk about it, because, I mean, it doesn’t get better than this.’
KOJO Institute founder Kike Ojo-Thompson. Bilkszto said she accused him of supporting white supremacy because he challenged her comments
The day after the third session, Bilkszto filed for sick leave, and missed the fourth and final session.
He then filed a complaint with school officials saying that he’d been harassed.
Ontario’s Workplace Safety and Insurance Board investigated and in August 2021 concluded that Thompson’s behavior was ‘abusive’ and amounted to ‘workplace harassment.’
Bilkszto was awarded seven weeks of lost pay.
But friends said he never got over the humiliation of being labelled a white supremacist, and the confrontation ate away at him.
In April this year, Bilkszto sued the Toronto District School Board, citing Thompson’s ‘defamatory statements’ and the unwillingness of administrators to defend him, despite previously praising him.
‘Bilkszto has suffered and will continue to suffer damage to his character and reputation both personally and professionally,’ the lawsuit states.
‘As well, Bilkszto has been subjected to embarrassment, scandal, ridicule, contempt, and severe emotional distress.’
He killed himself before the case could be concluded.
Bilkszto, 60, killed himself in July after suing the Toronto District School Board for emotional distress
The 60-year-old veteran teacher had worked for 24 years and still volunteered as a stand-in principal. His family say he was so ‘distressed’ by the disagreement with the anti-racism trainer and what happened afterwards that he took his own life
Jason Bilkszto, Richard’s nephew, told The Free Press: ‘How can you not be allowed to slightly disagree with something without them tearing you apart for it?’
McManus said he last spoke to Bilkszto the day before he took his own life.
‘It was absolutely clear he was not sleeping well as a result of all the stress,’ McManus said.
‘He was a very optimistic person, so the vast majority of the time, when people would be speaking to him, he would be seen as doing well, but his friends knew that he struggled – he struggled with what had happened to him.’
Canada’s education minister, Stephen Lecce, said: ‘I offer my heartfelt condolences to Richard’s family and friends, as we remember an educator that truly went above and beyond for his students.
‘No staff member should ever be subject to harassment while in their place of work.’
Ojo-Thompson said she ‘welcomes Education Minister Stephen Lecce’s review of this matter and will cooperate fully with Ministry officials.’
She added: ‘We believe the Ministry of Education is best positioned to investigate this matter to get to the bottom of what transpired at the Toronto District School Board after our workshop concluded over two years ago.’
Ari Goldkind, a Toronto attorney, told The Free Press that DEI consultants and the institutions that hire them need to realize their programs ‘can have horrendous, real-world consequences.’
‘There’s a real possibility here that, moving forward, the DEI training session becomes much more litigious, with attendees who feel put upon or hurt or maligned, dangerously maligned – meaning they’re ostracized or rendered unemployable – striking back in court,’ Goldkind said.
‘That’s the lesson of this tragedy, that people are sick and tired of being isolated and cast out from polite society because they have the gall to ask a question or challenge the orthodoxy.’
