The story of retired Toronto music teacher Violet Shearer is equal parts baffling and egregious. The good news: her saga comes with a happy ending.

Here’s the skinny: Violet worked for the Toronto District School Board 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 racist.

Yet, the questions arises: what exactly makes Land of the Silver Birch racist?

Incredibly, to this day, that question remains unanswered. Apparently, some condemn the song for “romanticizing Indigenous culture.” But how does this qualify as racism? Indeed, Violet says that even the school administrators could not explain in tangible terms how the song, that dates back more than a century, is racist. But they bent the knee to a couple of parents who deemed it to be racist nevertheless.

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. Spoiler alert: Violet was victorious.

The victory is bittersweet. Violet, who self-represented, 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.

Violet was seeking damages of $1 million, although she cannot say what the precise settlement amounted to.

However, part of the settlement involved a public apology to Violet from the TDSB. And she was not compelled to sign a non-disclosure agreement regarding the nitty-gritty details of the litigation, so she is free to speak about her case.

She was also recently announced as the recipient of the 2025 Richard Bilkszto Award, which represents freedom of expression.

And while Violet has moved on from teaching music, she is now training to become a paralegal. Her focus is education law, and Violet says the goal is to represent other teachers who are unfairly maligned by their woke and weak school administrators and school board educrats.

We wish her well.

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