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Dreams Delayed: addressing systemic anti-Black racism and discrimination in education

One year after the release of Dreams Delayed: Addressing Systemic Anti-Black Racism and Discrimination in Ontario’s Public Education System, the OHRC continues to advance its commitment to fostering a human rights culture in education by supporting meaningful implementation of the plan’s calls to action. 

A key milestone in this work has been the ongoing development of a series of short, accessible educational webinars designed to support education duty-holders in translating the principles into practice.

Dreams Delayed was developed in response to longstanding and well-documented systemic barriers faced by Black students and educators across Ontario’s publicly funded education system. Grounded in dignity, substantive equality, accountability, and collective responsibility, the Action Plan outlines 29 concrete calls to action aimed at addressing systemic anti-Black racism and discrimination. While the report provides a comprehensive roadmap for change, the OHRC heard clearly from education partners, particularly school leaders, that there was a need for practical, engaging tools to support understanding and implementation.

In response, the OHRC created these webinars to strengthen awareness, build capacity, and support compliance with the Code. Designed to be broadly applicable across the education sector, the webinars are intended for a wide range of duty-holders, including school boards, administrators, educators, and education stakeholders.

Each webinar focuses on a core pillar of the Action Plan. The first introduces Dreams Delayed, its purpose, and foundational concepts such as systemic discrimination, student well-being, accountability, data collection, and substantive equality. The second will situate the Action Plan within the broader human rights and legal context, explaining how the Code applies to education and outlining the legal obligations of duty-holders, supported by real-world examples. The third webinar will focus on action, highlighting key calls to action, clarifying roles and responsibilities, and identifying concrete steps duty-holders can take to advance compliance and systemic change.

Using visual storytelling and plain-language approaches, the webinars are designed to be accessible, engaging, and practical. They reflect the OHRC’s strategic priorities of advancing rights-based approaches, promoting accountability, and embedding human rights principles into public systems. They also reinforce the OHRC’s leadership in addressing anti-Black racism in education and supporting institutions to move beyond awareness toward sustained, measurable action.

As Ontario continues to confront complex and intersecting challenges including inequalities in education outcomes and student sense of belonging and well-being, the need for clear, rights-based guidance remains critical. The Dreams Delayed webinar series represents an important step in bridging policy and practice, supporting duty-holders to meet their legal obligations, and ensuring that commitments to equity translate into real improvements in the lived experiences of Black students and educators.

Through this work, the OHRC reaffirms that addressing systemic anti-Black racism in education is an ongoing, shared responsibility, one that requires sustained leadership, accountability, and action so that no student’s dreams are delayed.

 

 

Four-year anniversary update of the Right to Read inquiry report

In October 2019, building on previous work on accessible education, the Commission launched a public inquiry into human rights issues facing students with reading disabilities in Ontario’s public education system, recognizing that the right to equal education includes the right to read. 

The Right to Read inquiry report was released in February 2022 and called for critical changes to Ontario’s approach to teaching early reading, including 157 recommendations for education-sector partners. 

The inquiry report garnered significant public interest and support from provincial, national, and international audiences. Other jurisdictions across Canada are also working to implement structured literacy and other changes that reflect the Commission’s findings, and human rights commissions in Manitoba and Saskatchewan have launched similar initiatives. 

Over the past year, the Commission has worked closely with education partners across the province, including government, school boards and faculties of education, to monitor the progress of implementation of the recommendations related to the benchmarks of curriculum and instruction, universal screening, reading interventions, accommodation, professional assessments, and systemic issues. 

Since the publication of the inquiry report, there have been notable changes to the education system including: 

  • Ontario revised Grade 1 to 9 language curriculum and instructional guides to reflect the recommendations in the report in both English and French. The new language curriculum was designed to improve early reading instruction and reduce the need for intervention.  
  • Ontario issued a policy/program memorandum that mandated early reading screening every year for all students in Kindergarten to Grade 2, beginning in September 2024. 
  • More recently, the government announced a new Kindergarten curriculum that aligns with the recommendations in the Right to Read inquiry report, with a focus on structured reading instruction. 

Many school boards embraced the inquiry report, taking steps to update their literacy practices.  Educators across the province have shown significant commitment and creativity, and are working tirelessly to further their learning, while supporting their colleagues to facilitate the transition. The changes resulting from the Right to Read inquiry have begun a transformation, shifting the province to a proactive approach to preventing reading difficulties.  The Commission marked the report’s four‑year anniversary by celebrating this progress with the release of a video as part of its Did You Know series.

Ontario can realize the promise of the Right to Read only through a sustained culture change within the education system. The Commission will continue to collaborate across the education sector to work collectively to ensure every child’s right to read is upheld.

 

 

Submissions regarding Bill 33’s proposed amendments to the Education Act (regarding School Resource Officers)

In June 2025, the OHRC provided submissions to the Ministry of Education (the Ministry) emphasizing the importance of taking an evidence and human rights-based approach to Bill 33, Supporting Children and Students Act, 2025. The proposed amendments require school boards to work with local police services to implement School Resource Officer (SRO) programs. The OHRC encouraged the Ministry to ensure that any amendments to the Education Act are based on evidence and human rights principles and put forward its recommendations, including: 

  • Review Dreams Delayed: Addressing systemic Anti-Black Racism and Discrimination in Ontario’s Public Education System and the Compendium of Recommendations.
  • Conduct a provincial review of SRO programs, as initially called for in the Framework for change to address systemic racism in policing. The review should examine the impact of SRO programs on students and must centre on the experiences of Black, Indigenous, and 2SLGBTQIA+ students, who are disproportionately affected.
  • Invest in student well-being, including more in-school social supports.

The OHRC emphasized that systemic discrimination in policing and the education system threaten the well-being of all children in the education system. 

Through the extension of its Strategic Plan, the OHRC remains committed to addressing systemic discrimination in education and to ensuring that all children and youth in Ontario can learn in environments where their dignity, safety and sense of belonging are fully respected.

 

 

Human rights and post-secondary education admissions 

In keeping with its goal of improving opportunities for students disproportionately affected by discrimination in Ontario, the OHRC provided a Submission on Bill 33 Regarding Admissions Policies Used by Colleges and Universities and a Response to the Ministry of Colleges, Universities, Research Excellence and Security about considering merit in post-secondary education admissions. 

These were in response to Bill 33, Supporting Children and Students Act, which proposed legislative amendments to the Ministry of Training, Colleges and Universities Act. These amendments received royal assent on November 20, 2025.  

The OHRC recognizes the value of assessing an applicant’s ability to succeed in post-secondary education. However, not everyone has equal access to the opportunity to demonstrate their potential, and this can be affected by their social, economic or historical circumstances. To avoid perpetuating systemic human rights barriers in admissions, the OHRC has said that conceptions of merit and admissions criteria should be inclusive and designed to consider the circumstances of and impacts on historically disadvantaged groups. The OHRC recommended that merit be defined in a way that encompasses the entire student experience.  

 

 

Preserving the right to a hearing for students with reading disabilities

The Right to Read inquiry report includes 157 recommendations to address systemic issues, which have resulted in students with dyslexia and other reading disabilities being denied meaningful access to education. Since then, many essential changes have been made and more are underway.

Nevertheless, students may continue to experience discrimination in education services. When they file discrimination claims with the HRTO, the Code guarantees an oral hearing into whether their rights were infringed.

However, in M.G. v. Ottawa-Carleton District School Board, the HRTO questioned its jurisdiction to hear such a claim asking for submissions on how the student’s allegations were covered by the Code. The OHRC intervened to argue that the HRTO should not use jurisdiction to dismiss claims about discrimination in education services without a hearing. 

The OHRC outlined how allegations that a student failed to receive the reading instruction, remediation,  and accommodation needed to learn to read, if proven at a hearing, would establish discrimination under the Code.

An HRTO adjudicator reviewed the submissions filed and determined that the Application should continue in the HRTO’s process. The OHRC will continue its efforts to preserve broad access to the human rights system guaranteed by the Code and to ensure every student realizes their fundamental right to read.

 

 

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