Principal Relentlessly Accused Of ‘White Supremacy’ Commits Suicide

A former principal with Canada's largest school board has died. According to his attorney, Richard Bilkszto took his own life after enduring years of accusations of white supremacy – all for defending his country at a diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) conference.

The Blaze reports that Bilkszto spent much of his career focused on empowering nontraditional students, including recent immigrants. Even after he retired, the unmarried educator continued to serve the Toronto District School Board (TDSB) as a contract principal, filling in for other administrators as needed.

In 2021, Bilkszto and other TDSB supervisors attended a DEI training session led by the KOJO Institute. During the instruction, KOJO Institute founder Kike Ojo-Thompson lambasted Canada, calling the country “more racist” than the United States and a “bastion of white supremacy and colonialism.”

Understandably, Bilkszto felt compelled to defend the country that had given him everything. But in doing so, his world was never the same. (RELATED: Fox News Bows To Pressure From Liberal Media, Alters Language When Referring To Terrorists)

The Blaze explains:

After those statements, Bilkszto — who was also a member of SOS TDSB, which works to preserve merit-based admissions for the district's specialty programs, as well as the Toronto chapter of the Foundation Against Intolerance and Racism, which fights against racism and for civil rights for all — spoke up to defend his homeland. “To sit here and talk about facts and figures and then walk into the classroom tomorrow and say, ‘Canada is just as bad as the United States,' I think we are doing an incredible disservice to our learners,” Bilkszto said.

After making those statements in support of Canada and the general good character of Canadians, Bilkszto was reportedly subjected to a horrendous bullying campaign. Repeated accusations that he was a white supremacist became so intense that he soon afterward took a leave of absence from the district. He later successfully sued for workers' compensation for lost earnings in connection to the incident.

Bilkszto returned to work a month later but was never restored to his former position. The National Pulse reported that the district also barred him from attending a graduation ceremony that year and revoked his contract for the following school year in reprisal for his actions and statements during the training. A fellow training attendee, who has since been named education director in Hamilton, Ontario, even supposedly thanked the KOJO Institute for targeting Bilkszto and thereby “modeling the discomfort administrators may need to experience in order to disrupt” white supremacy.

The Workplace Safety and Insurance Board later determined that Bilkszto had been the victim of workplace bullying and had endured “abusive, egregious and vexatious” treatment from Ojo-Thompson. This spring, two years after the training, Bilkszto filed a lawsuit against TDSB in the hopes of establishing a more “equality-focused, pro-human approach” to education in the district. In recent months, he had also been caring for his ailing mother, who lived hours away.

However, Bilkszto's lawyer, Lisa Bildy, revealed the accumulating stress over the ongoing legal wrangling and years of mental anguish of having his name dragged through the mud had taken their toll.

Bilkszto committed suicide on July 13. He was 60 years old.

In a statement commemorating her client, Bildy said “He leaves his distraught mother, brother, nephews, niece, and many dear family and friends whose lives he touched over the years,” adding that “family and friends have been left reeling and wishing they could have had the chance to convince him that he was loved, respected, and needed here.”

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