School apologizes for do-rag idea

A Catholic high school in Ajax is apologizing after students and staff were allowed to wear do-rags “to promote Black History Month,” but the principal is also saying the idea came from a student committee.

The parent of a student at Archbishop Denis O’Connor posted online after her daughter had come to her the previous night, upset about the incident.

“So in disbelief and shock I asked her what she would like to do,” Debbie Miles wrote on Facebook. “She asked that we allow her to handle it.”

Miles wrote that a “white math teacher” arrived in class wearing a do-rag.

“When she asked him to take it off because she felt it was racist, he told her he would not,” she wrote.

She added that the teacher said he was “supporting his coloured friends.”

“When she tried to educate him he sent her to the office. And as expected the vice-principal could not understand the issues!!!!”

She and her daughter declined further comment when contacted by the Star.

Dave Chambers, principal of Arch- bishop Denis O’Connor, said it was a “club-initiated activity.”

“The idea was brought forward by the student Black History Committee as a way to promote Black History Month in combination with a dress-down day,” he wrote in an email to the Star.

“This was a club-initiated activity for students and staff — not a boardwide initiative,” he added.

“We acknowledge that this was not the outcome that was anticipated and we apologize that the activity offended people.”

Chambers declined further comment.