VANCOUVER — The B.C. Teachers’ Federation has won another round in a legal fight over freedom of expression for its members in public schools.
The B.C. Court of Appeal ruled Tuesday that an arbitrator was wrong in 2011 in deciding that teachers in Southeast Kootenay district improperly exposed students to political messaging several years earlier when they wore buttons and tacked posters to classroom doors and walls as part of a campaign titled When Will They Learn.
At the time, school principals ordered the teachers to remove the buttons and posters, which prompted them to file a grievance claiming their Charter rights to freedom of expression had been violated. The BCTF campaign was intended to deliver three main messages to voters in advance of the 2009 provincial election: that special-needs students were being neglected, 177 schools had been closed and thousands of classes were overcrowded.
The B.C. Public School Employers’ Association argued that students must be sheltered from political messages and the teachers’ campaign would undermine public confidence in the school system. Arbitrator Mark Thompson sided with the employer, saying restrictions on teachers’ freedom of expression were justified to protect “the vulnerability of the students.”
But the appeal court disagreed, noting the teachers’ actions were “limited and restrained.” In a 3-0 ruling, it set aside the arbitrator’s decision and allowed the union’s grievance.
“There was no evidence in this case of any actual or potential harm to students from being exposed to the materials about educational issues, nor any facts from which an inference of harm could be drawn,” Madam Justice Risa Levine stated in the ruling.
“Open communication and debate about public, political issues is a hallmark of the free and democratic society the Charter is designed to protect. Children live in this diverse and multi-cultural society, and exposing them to diverse societal views and opinions is an important part of their educational experience.”
It would be a different matter “if schools became a political battleground, festooned at election time with competing political messages,” she wrote. “On those facts, it might be expected there would be direct evidence, or fair inferences, of interference with the educational process and some harm to students’ educational experience. That is not this case.”
Mr. Justice Christopher Hinkson, while supporting the decision, cautioned that exposing children to only one view of an issue “could represent a failure to uphold the principles of tolerance and impartiality that the education system must promote and foster.”
But he said it will take another case before the courts can determine where a teachers’ rights to freedom of expression must give way to the rights of students to be educated in schools free from bias.
