DDSB trustee censured for a second time over social media posts

Trustees at the Durham District School Board (DDSB) have once again voted to censure one of their own.

Sanctions were issued against Trustee Linda Stone on Monday, following a report on her social media activity.

Stone has previously come under fire for tweets that have been described as offensive to transgender staff and students.

The May 26 report

Monday’s board meeting brought up a report by Michael L. Maynard, the DDSB’s integrity commissioner.

The May 26 report appears to be similar in nature to one from four months earlier. However, it deals with more-recent complaints that have been filed against Stone.

According to the report, many of the complaints focused on Stone’s social media activity, including tweets and retweets from her Twitter account. She notably came under fire in December 2022 for online behaviour.

“Woman is not a feeling or a costume,” read one such post, which Stone retweeted on December 20. “Stop erasing women. Stop appropriating our identity. Hands off our hard won sports, spaces, and shortlists.”

“This tweet clearly aims to promote a message of trans exclusion,” wrote Maynard. “It belittles and dismisses authentic trans identity and gender expressive activities such as drag. It is disrespectful and discriminatory.”

Another retweet from December 7 claimed that the concept of gender identity had been “made up by a pedophile psychopath.”

Maynard argued that Stone’s varied internet activity had breached multiple sections of the board’s Code of Conduct.

“Throughout my extensive review of the many dozens of pages of submissions by complainants, I became convinced that Trustee Stone was not engaging in good faith discourse,” reads the report. “She was not expressing benign opinions or asking innocent questions for the purposes of public consultation. Her activity was more akin to campaigning for one side of an issue to the exclusion of others.”

“For trustees, the reasonable bounds of their office are confined by their fiduciary duty to the board, and the basic functions of the office as defined by the Education Act and board policies,” it continued. “In particular, the expression of political views, while permissible in some cases, becomes problematic for a trustee when the subject matter of their commentary veers into disrespectful conduct and discrimination – which I believe occurred on several occasions. Such conduct is clearly contrary to board policy and is a violation of the Code.”

The report can be seen here in full, starting on the 250th page of the document.

The June 19 meeting

In light of the report, trustees passed a motion deeming that Stone had indeed breached the Code of Conduct.

They wound up voting to censure Stone, as well as bar her from the upcoming September 18 board meeting. She will also be barred from sitting on any committees between September 1, 2023 and March 31, 2024.

According to officials at the meeting, Stone is being given 14 days to provide a written response to the motions. After that, trustees will have an additional 14 days to schedule another meeting, at which point they will consider whether to uphold Monday’s sanctions.

“To all [DDSB] trustees who voted to censor Trustee Stone and her transphobic tweets – we see you and appreciate you,” wrote PFLAG’s Durham Region chapter on Tuesday. “Those who did not – we also saw you and will remember.”

Stone was first censured in February, following an earlier report by the integrity commissioner’s office into her tweets. That earlier censuring meant she was barred from committee meetings until December 31, 2023.

However, earlier in June, trustees voted to shorten that to September 1. Right after the vote, Stone announced that she would be dropping her legal action against the board.