May 30, 2024
Case Description
Josh Alexander was a grade 11 student at St. Joseph’s High School in Renfrew, Ontario until he was suspended, issued a trespass notice, and “excluded” for the entire remainder of the 2022-2023 school year by the Principal of St. Joseph’s, Derek Lennox, all because he expressed his Christian beliefs, during class debates and on social media, that there are only two genders, that students cannot switch between genders, and that male students should not be permitted into girls’ washrooms. St. Joseph’s is a public Catholic school, part of the Renfrew County Catholic District School Board. Kicking Josh out of school and having him arrested for expressing his Christian beliefs is, among other things, unlawful religious discrimination.
Through Liberty Coalition Canada Chief Litigator James Kitchen Josh appealed the School Board’s decisions to suspend and exclude him from school.
The appeals should have been heard right away, but the School Board unlawfully refused to accept Josh’s appeals. Josh therefore had to go to court to force the School Board to accept and hear the appeals. On August 31, 2023, Justice Hooper of the Ontario Superior Court of Justice found that Josh’s appeals were valid and that the School Board was required to hear them.
The School Board rejected Mr. Kitchen’s request the hearing be open to the public. Instead, the School Board directed the hearing be held in secret, with only the parties, lawyers, and witnesses permitted to attend, which occurred on November 15 and 17, 2023.
On December 18, 2023, the School Board, predictably, ruled against Josh. But then it purported to order that the reasons for its decision itself be withheld from the public. The Board cited “the importance of privacy” as somehow justifying such a shocking violation of the open court principle, despite the fact no individuals were identified in the decision except Josh.
On February 20, 2024, Mr. Kitchen filed an Application for Judicial Review to the Divisional Court of the Ontario Superior Court of Justice in an effort to have the decision overturned. When Mr. Kitchen filed his brief, the ability to publicly share the School Board’s secret decision was triggered. Regarding the decision, Mr. Kitchen stated as follows in his brief:
The Board’s failure or refusal to address Josh Alexander’s central argument led it to conclude, contrary to the clear direction of the Supreme Court in Amselem and Big M, that individuals are only permitted by law to hold religious beliefs, not to declare or otherwise manifest those beliefs. The Board embraced an impoverished, repugnant, and unreasonable view of the right to participate in society free of discrimination on the basis of religious belief. The Board acknowledged that individuals are free to hold religious beliefs, but pretended individuals are not free to act upon or publicly express those beliefs if someone subjectively feels disrespected, insulted, offended, et cetera when encountering those beliefs. The law has repeatedly rejected such a notion, and rightfully so.
Filing the court application will not only hopefully result in holding the School Board accountable before a court of law for its decision to deny Josh’s appeals, but it has also defeated the School Board’s attempt to keep the reasons for its decision secret. Liberty Coalition Canada is now able to provide the public with not only the School Board’s absurd reasons for ruling against Josh, but also all the material submitted by Josh to the trustees that they ignored in arriving at their decision.
Josh has also submitted an Application to the Ontario Human Rights Tribunal (HRTO) alleging “creed” discrimination on the part of the Renfrew County Catholic District School Board, Principal Lennox, and two of Josh’s teachers. The Application details the shockingly discriminatory conduct of teachers and students at St. Joseph’s, as well as Principal Lennox’s retaliatory decisions to suspend and exclude for Josh expressing his beliefs and organizing a student walk-out to protest St. Joseph’s policy of permitting biological males to enter and use the girls’ washrooms.
The Application further explains how the religious discrimination experienced by Josh at St. Joseph’s not only unlawfully contravenes the Ontario Human Rights Code, but is contrary to the Ontario Human Rights Commission’s own policies regarding religious discrimination and what the Commission refers to as “faithism”. Among other things, Josh is seeking from the HRTO a declaration that the School Board discriminated against him on the basis of his Christian beliefs.
Under the guise of “safety”, as that term has been revised by woke gender activists now pervasive in public institutions, Josh has been penalized for expressing his Christian beliefs regarding God’s design of the male and female sex. Josh not only has a right to express himself during class discussions and through public forums, he also has a right not to be discriminated against by his school for his sincere religious beliefs. Being suspended and excluded from attending classes is the height of discrimination. Josh will continue to courageously stand for his beliefs, for truth, and for girls whose voices of concern over their actual safety are being drowned out by the outraged nonsense of the woke mob.
Josh and Mr. Kitchen thank those who donated to Liberty Coalition and thereby made this continued fight for justice possible. Readers who want to see Mr. Kitchen and Josh Alexander continue to hold the Renfrew Catholic School Board accountable before the courts are encouraged to donate to the Liberty Defense Fund.
