“I am guilty of a thought crime. I’m guilty for my speech.”
Historical Photo: Kamloops Indian Residential School, 1930
James Walter’s fight for freedom of thought and the right to discuss historical truths.
James Walter* has been teaching for 40 years, and the last three years have been at a west coast Canadian school board. He holds a PhD from University of Toronto in Educational Theory. His Master’s was in History, and his thesis was on the “Indian Education Policy” (now referred to as the First Nations Education Policies) as part of the Indian Act, a constitutional document that first came to power in 1876. That is, James Walter is an expert on residential schools. James knows history and he knows education. He has been teaching History in a French immersion school.
The son of a chief justice, a loving husband, and father of three grown children who all work in law, James is a free thinking, proud Canadian, who believes in liberal democracy and equal rights for all. But in the spring of 2021, when he diverged from the residential school narrative and offered some additional historical facts to consider, his life started to unravel.
“I am guilty of a thought crime. I’m guilty for my speech,” Walter admits over a zoom call.
When asked what he thinks of residential schools, he says, “What happened at the residential schools was criminal. Taking children from away from their families, removing them from all they knew, physically removing them from their mothers is criminal.”
So, then what’s the problem with James’s opinion?
James made the mistake of telling his class the truth. He told them that the children were not murdered by the priests, they weren’t beaten to death, nor where they left out in the cold or tortured in the snow, as rumours in the school had suggested. Rather, what the records show, and what the most recent postmortems confirm, is that the children died of diseases.
“My understanding is that the children died mostly from disease, tuberculosis, polio, and in some cases neglect.”
James listened to his students. He heard their thoughts on it, and considered their perspective. But he is a history teacher. It is his responsibility to give his students a thorough knowledge of history, including and especially the complex and hard to stomach events. While James acknowledges that some of the children died of neglect, he maintained that they weren’t murdered and tortured. And he also agreed with his students – it was wrong to have the children in the residential schools in the first place.
James’s description of what happened at the residential schools is a sad truth. But it’s a truth. He says, “As a historian, I recognize that during his period in history, all people suffered, this was not exclusive to indigenous people in North America. … I am a historian, and I’m doing my best to understand the past. I wish for my students to understand the past.”
“The aim of teaching,” he continues, “is to understand a subject. Not to accept or reject it.”
Following the discussion with the class, a girl went down to talk to a guidance councillor to help deal with her trauma from hearing the news – news that was revisited and reiterated over the school’s PA system that very day. Not long after she returned to the class, two men came to the classroom door and told James he had to leave. Right then and there. No warning, no discussion, no context. And as if the humiliation of being removed from class wasn’t enough, as students and other teachers looked on, they refused to tell him why.
“They wouldn’t tell me. I said I’m not leaving until I know what I did wrong.”
Once he was down in the office, James refused to leave without knowing the details of his crime. Finally, the principal shared that the guidance counselor informed the administration that he, James, had said something inappropriate to the girl.
“But what did I say? They wouldn’t tell me. So I relayed the events as they happened in class. And I said that the residential school children died from disease.”
The principal said he believed him. James left the school, feeling completely disgraced. The next morning, he received his suspension.
As of December 2021, James has been suspended for 7 months. The allegations against him continue to undergo metamorphosis.
His accusations have come and gone under some of these guises:
Deviating from the lesson plan.
Speaking about Greek-Roman goddesses favouring girls. (He had written a note on the board that described the etymology of the word vendredi – the French word for Friday, he wrote: Venus was the “Roman goddess of love and beauty.”)
Telling students that he wanted this wife dead so he could remarry.
While all these accusations are outrageous, if not simply ridiculous, the last claim was particularly troubling for a man who took a year leave to care for his beloved, ill, wife as she recovered from cancer.
“The school was trying to get me for something. So they interviewed students over and over again, until the kids just started making up stories. Some kids that get bad marks, it’s their way of getting back at you.”
Now the school has dropped all the allegations or at least the details of them. As of September 2021, they are charging him with being “insensitive, inappropriate, and inflammatory.” But they have not included any details into the nature of his insensitivity, inappropriateness, or inflammatory behaviour. He has repeatedly asked for the details surrounding the allegations, but none have been provided.
“They don’t have anything against me. What they have is a teacher who is not willing to go along with the narrative. …. I committed heresy in telling the students the truth. The [215 indigenous] children in Kamloops were not murdered, as the students at my school and district have been incessantly told.”
James Walter, a history teacher, is being punished for doing his job, for offering a thorough, complex, and holistic view of history.
At the time of publication, James Walter’s case is still active.
*James requested to use an alternate name after sharing his story, as he recently was compelled to sign a confidentiality agreement in order to proceed with his case.
