Project Summary:

This archival and oral history project will document the understudied relationship between
language-education policies and systemic racism in Canadian schools. Our proposal is well timed, given
the renewed scrutiny of systemic racism in Canada’s public institutions we are currently witnessing. In
July 2020, for example, the Ontario government proposed several initiatives to address systemic racism
in the province’s publicly-funded schools (Office of the Premier, 2020). These initiatives—described by
the government as “help[ing] break down barriers for Black, Indigenous and racialized students” (p. 1)—
include banning suspensions in the early grades, ending the practice of streaming in Grade 9, and
toughening sanctions against teachers who use racist or other forms of discriminatory language. In
announcing these measures, the education minister stressed, “To racialized students in Ontario: we see
you” (p. 2). It would be hard for him not to. His announcement followed another eruption of activism
against anti-Black racism in Toronto (Armstrong & Lorinc, 2020). As well, persistent organizing by
Black and Muslim parents in the province’s second-largest board has exposed the extent of racism in its
schools, leading the minister in June to impose another change in board leadership (Rushowy, 2020).