Former Red Deer Catholic school trustee files for judicial review of board dismissal
CBC
A former Red Deer Catholic school trustee wants a judge to reinstate her, arguing board colleagues unjustly removed her over social media posts and interviews.
Monique LaGrange filed two applications for judicial review last week in the Red Deer Court of King's Bench.
Her lawyer, James Kitchen, said in an interview Friday that LaGrange wants to continue work as a school trustee and is pushing back against "cancel culture" for expressing opinions.
"You don't need to resort to censorship and exclusion and all these sort of coercive tactics of just kicking people out of, and off of, any position of influence or power or or decision making," Kitchen said.
Kitchen said free speech should only be curtailed when a person makes "objectively bad, dangerous, evil" comments wishing harm or death upon people.
In August, LaGrange posted a meme on social media with two pictures, one on top of the other: one of children holding swastika flags, and the other of children holding Pride flags, with the caption, "Brainwashing is brainwashing."
After the school board received a complaint about the post, trustees held a meeting in September where they decided LaGrange had breached a code of conduct.
Trustees passed a motion preventing LaGrange from representing the board or division in an official capacity, including in media interviews. They told her to refrain from making public statements about the LGBTQ community.
They asked her to apologize for the post and required her to take sensitivity training.
Documents the board released after the decision said LaGrange told her board colleagues the Holy Spirit told her to "go for it" and post the meme likening LGBTQ pride to Nazi Germany.
An application for judicial review filed with the court says after the board's initial sanction, LaGrange posted something else online depicting a wolf wearing makeup and captioned, "I just want to read some books to your chickens."
She also appeared on an online talk show and a Christian podcast in October defending her online post from August.
The board then voted in November to disqualify LaGrange as a trustee, saying she had violated the first sanction.
In an interview, Kitchen said LaGrange has asked a court to review both her initial sanction and her removal.
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