Ombudsman Rules in Favour of Student Suspended for “F*ck Israel” Post

Royal West Academy has been rebuked by a provincial watchdog for suspending a student who posted “Fuck Israel. Holy shit” on her private Instagram last year.

Quebec’s student ombudsman has ordered the school and the English Montreal School Board (EMSB) to retrain relevant staff on the school board’s antibullying policy. It also demanded they review how to apply disciplinary sanctions in a way that respects students’ rights.

In a February ruling, the ombudsman overturned Royal West’s decision to punish a student because she used a curse word to criticize Israel on her private social media account. An administrator told the student, who we’ll call Dawn, that her post made Jewish classmates feel unsafe. 

Dawn’s family challenged the decision before the ombudsman, who ruled in their favour late last month.

But while the EMSB responded to the ombudsman’s ruling on Feb. 27, it did not inform Dawn or her family. It only wrote an email to the student two weeks later, after her parents inquired about the case.

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“Unfortunately, we neglected to forward the letter to your attention,” an employee on the EMSB wrote in an email to Dawn’s family.

Members of the group Independent Jewish Voices Canada (IJV) protested outside EMSB’s head office on March 17, demanding the board publicly apologize to Dawn. They also denounced the school board’s participation in a fundraiser that would send three EMSB students to Israel as it wages a war that killed 1,300 Iranian civilians in less than a month.

“Given the way that the school treated (Dawn) when she rightly criticized the state of Israel on her private social media, to be fundraising for and sending students and staff to Israel is unimaginable,” said Zev Saltiel, a spokesperson for IJV. “Especially given the increased attacks from Israel and the U.S. on Iran and Lebanon. Not only is it unethical for the school board to be sending kids there, it’s unsafe.” 

The EMSB did not provide a comment to The Rover, but sources close to the board’s leadership say the students will not go if travel advisories remain in place when the trip begins next month. The students and one EMSB teacher are going to the March of the Living, a Holocaust remembrance event that takes place in Poland and Israel. Although this isn’t an official EMSB event, the school board used its social media and branding to help fundraise for the trip, which is scheduled for mid-April.

The school board’s spokesperson also donated to the trip, as first reported by Isaac Peltz of On the Trail.

“It is a true inversion of justice to punish a young student decrying war crimes while protecting

the image of the foreign state committing them,” said Nadine Faraj, a member of IJV. “If these Israel-defenders could argue with facts and evidence, they wouldn’t have to resort to trying to silence and smear critics, but the evidence is so egregious, it is not on their side.”

In an interview with The Rover, Dawn said her support for the Palestinian people is rooted in her identity as a Kanien’kehá:ka (Mohawk).

“It feels incredibly personal to me,” said Dawn. “What was done to us, to my ancestors, by European colonizers is being done to the people of Palestine. They are being pushed from their land, they are being wiped out to clear the land for settlers. 

“I am not saying the Jewish people don’t have a historic claim to the land, but theirs isn’t the only one. You can’t just brutalize people and kill them in their homes, their hospitals and their refugee camps to assert that claim.”

Outside of its duties as Quebec’s largest English school board, the EMSB is leading the fight against the provincial government over the rights of Muslim teachers to wear a hijab at work. For years, the school board has sought to overturn Bill 21, Quebec’s religious symbols ban, challenging the government all the way to the Supreme Court of Canada.

But on the question of Israel, leadership at the school board appears to be in lockstep with lobby groups like Federation CJA, which supports Israel’s war against Gaza and sponsors the March of the Living. This support comes despite the war being considered a genocide by the United Nations, Oxfam, a majority of Canadian voters and the International Association of Genocide Scholars. 

Parents who support the Israel trip have contacted The Rover, arguing that it is essential for Jewish students to better understand their history and the factors that led to the creation of the state of Israel.

When reached for comment, EMSB spokesperson Michael Cohen said that the school board won’t comment on Dawn’s situation publicly but “will address some of these issues at another time.”

Critics point to the March of the Living’s support for political figures who fund the construction of Israeli settlements inside the West Bank. Those settlements have displaced 36,000 Palestinians and resulted in over 1,700 documented acts of settler violence in 2025 alone. They are also illegal under the Geneva Convention. But nowhere in the March of the Living’s promotional material are the words “Palestine” or “Palestinian” used, effectively erasing them from the region’s history.

Muslim parents who spoke to The Rover say that when they questioned the EMSB’s apparent support for Israel in conversations with elected commissioners or staff, they were either ignored or told they supported terrorism.

“I wasn’t called antisemitic, but an elected councillor at the EMSB told people I’m a supporter of (deceased Hamas leader) Yahya Sinwar,” said one parent and volunteer at the school board. She did not want her name published for fear of reprisals. “Technically, he didn’t attack my character. He could easily say he was joking.”

Councillor Julien Feldman was suspended by the school board’s ethics commissioner last month for falsely associating a mother of three EMSB students with antisemitism and derisively referring to her as “Ms. Gaza.” Without consulting parents or teachers, the elected council voted to absolve Feldman of wrongdoing last month in a vote that wasn’t included on the agenda circulated to the community ahead of the meeting.

“There appears to be, at the very least, some sort of anti-Muslim or anti-Palestinian bias at the EMSB,” said another Muslim parent. “The treatment reserved for people who support Palestine versus those who support Israel, it’s like there are two sets of rules.”

In regard to Dawn’s punishment for posting “Fuck Israel,” the student provided The Rover with a half-dozen examples of classmates posting pro-fascist content and posts that equate Palestinian supporters with terrorists. None of those students were punished. Although, in fairness, there is no evidence these posts were the subject of complaints to administrators.

Further adding to parents’ frustrations, two of the EMSB’s monthly meetings have been cancelled since November, and the council voted late last year to forbid parents from asking questions online during its meetings, which are livestreamed. In other words, parents who want to hold the elected council accountable must attend EMSB meetings in person.

“We have schools that are an hour’s drive away from the council meeting. It’s unrealistic to expect parents to show up to our headquarters in NDG on a weeknight right after rush hour,” said one senior official at the EMSB who spoke on condition of anonymity. 

“They’re cancelling meetings, they’re taking away online questions, they’re isolating themselves from the parents and children they claim to represent.”

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