Violet Shearer, a former music teacher with the Toronto District School Board, is the winner of 2025 Richard Bilkszto Award. She is a certainly a deserving recipient.

We recently interviewed Violet in-studio about her nine-year legal odyssey involving the TDSB in which she sued the school board for $1 million for defamation. Violet represented herself — and won!

Here’s the skinny: Violet worked for the TDSB for almost 30 years. But her career took a bizarre twist in May 2016 when she led a performance of elementary students in a song entitled, Land of the Silver Birch.

Alas, a few parents in attendance complained to the school administration regarding the performance. They alleged that the song was “inappropriate and racist.”

And that led to an email from the administration to the entire school community, branding the performance as “inappropriate and racist”, and by extension, Violet was “inappropriate and racist.”

The questions arises: what exactly makes Land of the Silver Birch racist? Incredibly, to this day, that question remains unanswered! Neither the administrators at the school or the school could provide an answer. But apparently if a couple of parents claim a song is racist, then it must be racist… even though there was no supporting evidence that it was… racist!

But Violet fought back. She commenced a defamation lawsuit against the TDSB in order to clear her reputation. And some nine years later, we have closure.

Victory! Defamed music teacher takes on Toronto’s woke school board in court

Violet Shearer's career took a bizarre twist in May 2016 when she led a performance of elementary students in a song entitled, Land of the Silver Birch.https://t.co/1Y3rDzXgwM

— Rebel News (@RebelNewsOnline) May 6, 2025

The victory was bittersweet. Violet went through enormous stress. But she had friends who helped out. And get this: she reviewed all the defamation cases involving Rebel News’s Ezra Levant to mount her challenge and make her case. And even though Violet was going up against the TDSB legal eagles, she prevailed.

Now Violet is pursuing a new career as a paralegal.

Recently, Violet was awarded the 2025 Richard Bilkszto Award, which honours freedom of speech. Richard was a respected educator who served as a teacher and principal in the Greater Toronto Area for 24 years. Richard’s steadfast commitment to creating equal opportunities and encouraging excellence for all students—regardless of their background—made a lasting difference in the lives of thousands of young people.

Sadly, Richard’s life was cut short (suicide) after he was subjected to bullying over a false accusation of racism. Yes, the TDSB hard at work yet again vis-a-vis defamation due to false accusations of racism.

“We are heartened to see that dedicated, compassionate, and genuine educators continue to make a meaningful and inspiring impact on their students' lives - just as Richard did,” said Natasha Mansouri, Chair of the Board. “Friends of Richard Bilkszto aims to honour these teachers and inspire the next generation.”

In the final analysis, we ponder: given what happened to Richard and Violet, will the woke-joke educrats who comprise the TDSB modify their egregious behaviour? We hope so, although we wouldn’t bet on it.

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