HEROES AND ZEROES OF 2018
HERE IS RICHARD BURNETT’S 23RD ANNUAL COLUMN OF 2018 YEAR’S HEROES AND ZEROS.
ZEROS The students responsible for alleged sexual assaults at Toronto’s elite all-boys St. Michael's College School, as well as school principal Greg Reeves and school president Father Jefferson Thompson, for not alerting police sooner. After the scandal broke on Nov. 16, Reeves and Thompson both resigned. Good riddance.
ZEROS The four 15-year-old Maryland football players at Damascus High School charged with rape for sexually assaulting four teammates with a broom during an Oct. 31 hazing incident.
ZERO McGill University, who renowned Montreal author Will Aitken – in an Oct. 29 open letter in the McGill Tribune – accuses of homophobia in the 1970s when, “as a queer man writing a thesis about the queer Anglo-American writer Christopher Isherwood, I identified as queer in the preface to the thesis. This set off a year-long battle, during which the English department was fully committed to failing my thesis for that very reason. They only backed down after I hired a lawyer and with the help of many friends made their bigoted behavior an issue in the media. I did finally receive my MA—I believe it was the first openly queer thesis written in Canada (but would certainly welcome evidence to the contrary). I never received an apology from the McGill English department or from the university itself.”
HERO Alberta’s Ministry of Education, for instructing 28 privatelyrun schools to comply with legislation permitting gay-straight alliances – or risk having their funding pulled in 2019.
ZERO Kansas high school teacher Justin Adrian, busted for hooking up with an 18-year-old student in a classroom during school hours. They met on Grindr.
ZERO Grindr, who, Buzzfeed reported on April 2, shared the HIV status and location data of their users to third parties. Following publication of Buzzfeed’s exposé, Grindr said it would stop sharing this information.
ZERO Malaysia’s Sharia High Court, which sentenced two lesbians to a public caning in September.