Taking action: the Ontario Human Rights Commission’s Dreams Delayed report
March 28 2025
The Ontario College of Teachers welcomes this week's release of the Ontario Human Rights Commission (OHRC) report Dreams Delayed: Addressing Anti-Black Racism and Discrimination in Ontario's Public Education System.
The College's mandate is to regulate the teaching profession by protecting student safety and well-being, and OHRC's report identifies the systemic barriers that unfairly disadvantage Black students.
Work is underway
The College is carefully reviewing the report's calls to action, and we can say that we have already taken proactive action on many of them. For example, Action 1 urges all education duty-holders to acknowledge and commit to action on anti-Black racism and discrimination.
In March 2022, the College published the Professional Advisory on Anti-Black Racism, as well as Additional Qualification (AQ) Guidelines for Part 1, Part II, and Specialist courses. These resources were developed with substantial input from Black voices, including Ontario Certified Teachers, parents and guardians of students, and subject matter experts on the diverse cultures and histories of Ontario's Black communities.
What we heard during our consultations has a stark resemblance to what we read in the OHRC report. Specifically, that Black students face many more barriers and challenges than students from other communities. These barriers include overrepresentation in programs and courses that generally do not lead to post-secondary studies, and an accompanying underrepresentation in programs for gifted students.
The Dreams Delayed report also calls on the College to review standards of practice regarding racism, discrimination, and culturally responsive pedagogy. We are also able to confirm that such a review is well underway, that we have engaged with parents and guardians of Black students as part of our review, and that we look forward to further engagement with Black community members as it continues.
More needs to be done
While we consider this progress to be significant, simply making progress is not enough.
As Ontario's teaching regulator, we remain firmly committed to working with all education system partners who share responsibility for the safety, success, and well-being of Black students. Together, we can identify and dismantle the systemic barriers that face them, and we are grateful to the OHRC for providing a report that will help guide our efforts.
