“We can’t breathe, the school is plastered with posters, she can’t focus on anything else,” a colleague said of the teacher.
A queer-identified Jewish teacher in BC, Canada, who claims that her pedagogy is “about intersectional empowerment for all,” went to mainstream media for support after receiving criticism over her highly politicized classroom. Annie Ohana claimed she received “hundreds” of “horrific” homophobic, Islamophobic, and antisemitic messages online – and that she, her colleagues, and her students are “in danger” as a result of the criticism.
Ohana, who teaches at LA Matheson Secondary in Surrey, BC, caught the attention of former teacher Chanel Pfahl last month. Ohana is a law and social justice teacher, and head of her school’s “Indigenous department.” Pfahl describes in her X (formerly Twitter) bio that she “exposes wokism in Canadian schools.” She posted several photos of Ohana’s classroom, which is plastered with various pride and social justice flags or posters, including a “Don’t like looting? You will hate the British Museum” poster. There are also several flags that denote various sexual orientations or gender identities. A photo of Ohana shows her dressed in rainbow-adorned clothing with an “equality for everyone” shirt.
All of the photos used by Pfahl were originally posted to X by Ohana, who proudly shares her classroom and political views with the public. For example, in a recent X post, Ohana said: “Being a co-conspirator in celebrating Indigeneity and undoing genocidal colonial systems as a settler is a gift, not erasure. Freeing others from colonial control, frees my own family from colonial realities… No justice on stolen land.”
Pfahl’s original post about Ohana stated that the teacher “spends her days influencing kids to adopt her personal political beliefs” and that Ohana “needs to be fired immediately.” The post garnered nearly 40 thousand views and was met largely with disbelief and condemnation. One social media user asked: “What subject does she even teach? This is the classroom of an activist, not a teacher. Sure, she may have a teaching degree, but she is an activist first and foremost. Highly concerning.”
Pfahl’s critics claim that her work unfairly targets and harasses teachers. Pfahl disagrees. Speaking with The Post Millennial, she said: “I expose indoctrination in schools not to incite harassment toward individual teachers or staff, but simply to bring attention to what is being taught.”
On X, Pfahl also posted that she does not intend to harass or silence Ohana. “[D]espite the fact that I profoundly disagree with her worldview, and think her teaching through an equity/intersectional lens is very inappropriate, I respect the fact that she’s willing to engage/stand up for what she believes. She even seems sweet, frankly. I hope she realizes, at some point, that she is caught up in an ideology that will destroy us all, and that bringing her activism to school is wrong,” she wrote.
One of Ohana’s supporters, quoted in sympathetic mainstream media pieces, is Elizabeth Simons, the deputy director of the Canadian Anti-Hate Network (CAHN). Simons asserted, without evidence, that there is a “trend of harassing” transgender identified, gender non-conforming, or “ally” educators. She claimed that Pfahl “is one person in a large network of people and social media accounts.” The government-subsidized CAHN is well-known for defaming Canadians who oppose gender ideology or the politics of the extreme left, and is losing a court battle to sue two journalists who linked CAHN to America’s Antifa movement. Numerous Canadians have called on Canada’s Liberal government to stop funding the highly partisan group.
In the days after Pfahl initially criticized Ohana, one of the teacher’s colleagues contacted Pfahl. This colleague, whose identity was verified, but chooses to remain anonymous, corroborated the accusation that Ohana pushes her personal political beliefs at work.
“I’ve been working with Ohana now for close to 10 years in our school. The propaganda and ‘woke’ agenda has gotten out of hand. It’s outrageous and disgusting. We as a staff get anywhere from 2-12 emails a day from her… It’s constant. Everything is an issue… Since she’s been globally recognized, it’s gotten extreme, and the kids are embarrassed. At this point, if Admin sends out emails, there is no reply all option because something is always an issue with the woman. We can’t breathe, the school is plastered with posters, she can’t focus on anything else,” said the colleague.
All of this is happening in the context of a growing public backlash against Canada’s public education and, specifically, the adoption of Sexual Orientation, Gender Identity (SOGI) curriculum in public schools. The heart of the issue is whether it’s appropriate to teach gender identity ideology or sexualized content to children as young as five. Over the last year, thousands of Canadians have shown up to anti-SOGI or “parental rights” protests, sometimes called the “One Million March for Children.” Regular anti-SOGI protests happen outside of Jagmeet Singh’s BC office. Singh is the leader of Canada’s New Democratic Party, which is currently propping up Prime Minister Trudeau’s Liberal minority government. Canada’s mainstream media almost exclusively—and falsely—frames the protestors as bigots.
Ohana has not provided a comment at the time of publication.
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