A former Canadian principal died by suicide after filing a lawsuit against the Toronto District School Board in response to the harassment he faced for disagreeing with an anti-racism instructor who claimed Canada was more racist than the U.S.

Richard Bilkszto, 60, worked for the school district for 24 years and retired in 2019, according to the Toronto Star. He continued to do contract work as a fill-in principal until his reputation was "systematically demolished" after challenging a Black instructor during two anti-racism training sessions in 2021, he alleged in a lawsuit filed against the district earlier this year. 

The instructor allegedly accused him of supporting white supremacy for pushing back against her claims.

In a statement on social media, Bilkszto’s attorney, Lisa Bildy, said her client took his own life on July 13 because the harassment stemming from the training sessions caused him "severe mental distress," adding that the "stress and effects" of the incidents "continued to plague" him.

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On April 26, 2021, Toronto District School Board educators attended an anti-racism training addressing the struggles of Black people, the Toronto Star reported. The session was led by Kike Ojo-Thompson, founder of the KOJO Institute, a consulting firm that provides anti-racist training.

Bilkszto alleged in his lawsuit that Ojo-Thompson told educators that Canada could be considered more racist than the U.S. because Canada has "never reckoned with its anti-Black history." Bilkszto, who disagreed with the instructor and challenged her comments, was condemned for appearing to undermine a Black woman.

"We are here to talk about anti-Black racism, but you in your whiteness think that you can tell me what’s really going on for Black people" Ojo-Thompson said, according to the lawsuit.

During a follow-up session a week later, Ojo-Thompson allegedly recalled their disagreement from the first session and used Bilkszto's efforts to challenge her claims as a "real-life" example of someone supporting white supremacy.

Bilkszto said he reported Ojo-Thompson’s alleged misconduct, but claimed that the school board failed to look into it, adding that one unidentified board member allegedly praised Ojo-Thompson for handling his "discomfort."

The Workplace Safety and Insurance Board investigated the incident after Bilkszto filed a "mental stress injury" claim and found that Ojo-Thompson's behavior was "abusive, egregious and vexatious, and rises to the level of workplace harassment and bullying." Bildy said the investigation deemed her client a victim, and he was offered two months of lost earnings.

Despite the findings of the investigation, Bilkszto said his reputation was tarnished by the instructor’s comments about him and the school board’s response.

After a six-week medical leave later that year, the district would not reinstate his contract, the Toronto Star reported. Bilkszto claimed this was either because of his damaged reputation or as retribution for asking the Workplace Safety and Insurance Board to investigate the incident.

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In his last months alive, Bilkszto is said to have spent his time advocating against the district’s various programs focused on addressing inequity.

The school board, in a statement following Bilkszto’s death, thanked him for his 24 years of service and for returning to the district as a fill-in principal after his retirement in 2019.

"Our hearts go out to Richard’s family and loved ones," district spokesperson Ryan Bird said in a statement to the Toronto Star. "He was a strong advocate for students — particularly those in adult and alternative education — and worked tirelessly to create an environment that fostered student success for students of all ages."

The KOJO Institute said in a statement earlier this month that the allegations in Bilkszto's lawsuit give "an inaccurate and incomplete picture" of what happened during the training sessions.

I like birds, but they’ve just been X’ed out of existence.

And it’s not just me. Millions of Twitter users yesterday found the troubled social media site rebranded with an X.

Let me ask this question: Is there one person who has somehow resisted Twitter’s charms who will now join because of the letter logo?

I don’t think so.

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This is purely a reflection of Elon Musk’s ego. The birds were conjured up by Twitter’s original founders. Musk has long been fascinated by X, and wants to turn his X site into an Everything App –one dealing with payments, banking, video and communications.

As someone who has not successfully run either an electric car company or a space rocket outfit, who am I to say that Musk can’t pull this off?

But I do know this: It would make more sense to become X when some of those services are ready, rather than just at some point in the hazy future.

Besides, having lost half the company’s advertising revenue since buying the place for $44 billion, Musk has much bigger problems to worry about than a symbolic name change.

I have generally been a supporter of Musk’s free-speech approach to Twitter, in marked contrast to most of the media, as well as those on the left, who view him as an ultra-conservative force for evil.

But I’ve been disappointed by some of his erratic behavior, such as picking petty fights with people and restoring suspended accounts of those who appeal to him personally. I see him as a right-leaning guy – he voted for Democrats for president through Joe Biden – who loves the traffic his provocative posts generate.

Of course there have been lots of glitches since Musk laid off more than three-quarters of the staff – that would seem a higher priority than picking the right letter of the alphabet.

"Soon we shall bid adieu to the twitter brand and, gradually, all the birds," Musk tweeted Sunday.

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Reaction was, well, rather negative. As reported by the Washington Post, sci-fi author John Scalzi tweeted: "I’ve been reluctant to leave Twitter entirely, but I have to tell you I won’t have a problem leaving X."

Ben Parr, president of marketing firm Octane AI, tweeted: "Looking forward to Elon stans explaining to me how destroying a universally-recognizable brand is a smart business decision."

I actually think Musk’s worst decision was to require users to pay $8 a month for services that had previously been free, rather than for expanded benefits. (I recently signed up so I could keep posting on the @MediaBuzzFNC account, but that has been a minor fiasco.)

The biggest blow, though said to be temporary, was that users couldn’t scroll through more than 600 tweets – not necessarily clicking on any – without paying to become verified members.

The main reason folks join Twitter is so they can feel plugged into the news, political and cultural debates, and follow the conversations among prognosticators they like (or dislike). Yeah, I know some just care about the likes of Kim Kardashian, but without Twitter as a breaking news magnet, it loses its reason for being.

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The X-rated version of Twitter comes just a couple of weeks after Mark Zuckerberg launched his copycat version called Threads, open only to Instagram members.

Threads drew a phenomenal 100 million members in just days, a setback for Twitter. But engagement has since plunged by 70% because the Meta chief rushed it out without such basic features as hashtags or the ability to find who to follow.

I’m also on Threads, and it’s a friendly but underpopulated neighborhood that lacks the toxicity of Twitter, at least for now, but also the friction that comes with sharp disagreement.

Twitter needs more than a name change. And if Elon Musk wanted to project a friendlier image, he could have named it XO.