A guidance counsellor in Halton region has been “assigned home” after telling a student he reminded her of a terrorist while wearing a keffiyeh in school.
A viral video of the interaction shows a male student speaking with a staff member after she tells him to “be careful,” and that his keffiyeh made him look like a member of Hamas.
“So I’m not a terrorist and you don’t treat me like a terrorist, but I look like one?” the student asks.
“I didn’t call you a terrorist, I said it reminds me of…”
“Hamas,” the student responds.
“Yes,” the counselor replies.
The incident occurred at Iroquois Ridge High School on April 26, and the staff member in the video has been assigned home pending an investigation, the Halton District School Board HDSB told Now Toronto in an email statement Monday morning.
A keffiyeh is a traditional garment worn across the Middle East and in recent years has become a symbol of Palestinian solidarity.
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The school board said it was “deeply concerned,” by the incident, saying its staff member’s behaviour was “harmful and unacceptable.”
“Anti-Palestinian racism, and racism in any form, is not tolerated at our school. Iroquois Ridge HS, along with all schools in the Halton District School Board (HDSB), strongly condemns this behaviour and are committed to upholding the Human Rights Code,” the statement said.
In an update posted to its website, the school board says it condemns discriminatory behaviour of all kinds.
“Harmful language causes pain and trauma to individuals to whom it is directed and to those who witness and/or share the same identity. We seek to affirm the identities of all students and build a community free from discrimination in all its forms,” the website says.
Footage of the incident, shared by the Muslim Advisory Council of Canada, has garnered over 200,000 views on X, and many have shared their thoughts on it; some commending the student for his calm manner, while others called attention to the perceived threat a keffiyeh may pose to certain pupils.
“I love this young man, he handles himself like a pro. This guidance counsellor must go. She is unfit to work in a school that is serving a diverse community,” one X user said.
“I really appreciate this student’s eloquence and calm in the face of such racism.
And I really appreciate the other students getting their phone out and pressing record,” another person said.
“Guidance counselor should be ashamed and resign from this profession,” one X user wrote.
However, others sided with the counsellor, arguing that a keffiyeh worn in school could feel threatening to Jewish students in particular.
“I’m troubled that the @MACCMuslims have so little empathy for how, in the current political context, wearing a keffiyeh might upset and frighten other students, especially Jews, and that they are teaching their young people to think only of themselves and to put fashion before humanity,” one person wrote.
The altercation at Iroquois Ridge High School comes amid an ongoing ban on keffiyehs in the Ontario legislature, and independent Hamilton MPP Sarah Jama being asked to leave the house for continuing to wear one, despite the contentious rule.
Jama was asked to remove herself from the legislature last Thursday by House Speaker Ted Arnott.
Jama was ousted from the Ontario NDP last October over comments she made on the Israel-Gaza war.
