B.C. teacher disciplined for failing to use students' preferred pronouns, assigning ‘slut’ as a vocabulary word

A Burnaby teacher has been reprimanded and ordered to take a remedial course after admitting to a variety of misconduct, including failing to use students' preferred pronouns and teaching students how to say “slut” in French.

In a consent resolution agreement with B.C.‘s Commissioner for Teacher Regulation signed earlier this month and published online Tuesday, William Donald Harvey acknowledged that he had “failed to create a positive and inclusive classroom environment for his students.”

The document does not name the school at which Harvey was teaching, describing it only as a high school in the Burnaby school district. It lists five “events” that occurred “while Harvey was teaching in French at the school.”

“Harvey regularly failed to use the preferred pronouns of some students even after the students had reminded him repeatedly of their preferred pronouns,” the agreement reads.

“Student A was a non-binary student in Harvey’s Grade 11 French class. On one occasion, during a classroom activity in Student A’s Grade 11 French language class, Harvey split the class into teams by gender (boys versus girls).”

Other events listed in the agreement include:

• Harvey sometimes communicating students' grades to them in front of their classmates, including telling a class in November 2023 that three students who were falling behind were “slackers”
• Asking a student of Japanese descent whether “it’s a cultural thing” for Japanese people “to drink more than you can handle and then throw up at parties”
• Using the term “Paki” in the context of explaining the use of the suffix “stan” in the naming of countries, causing a student whose family was from Pakistan to feel “embarrassed, offended and upset”
• And teaching students that the French word “pétasse” means “slut” in English, repeating the word several times and making students write it down as a vocabulary word

According to the consent agreement, the Burnaby school district issued Harvey a letter of discipline in early 2024, ordering him to complete three courses run by the BC Teachers Federation.

The commissioner began investigating in July 2024, months after Harvey had completed the courses assigned to him by the district.

In the consent agreement, Harvey agrees to a reprimand from the commissioner and to complete the course “Creating a Positive Learning Environment” through the Justice Institute of British Columbia by March 31.