N.B. cabinet minister wants to dissolve education council in gender-identity fight – New Brunswick [Video]

New Brunswick Education Minister Bill Hogan has said he intends to take the unprecedented move of dissolving the Anglophone East District Education Council, in the midst of a tense legal battle over Policy 713.

The government’s controversial changes to the policy require that school staff obtain parental consent when a child under 16 requests to be addressed by a different name or pronoun if that request is related to gender identity.

The district education council (DEC) is proceeding with litigation over these changes, which the council argues are unconstitutional and could be harmful to students. The DEC also believes the mandatory parental consent requirements go against the province’s Human Rights Act.

Instead, the DEC has its own policy, which indicates staff are to use the names and pronounce that students ask them to use.

After a tense back and forth through correspondence, which saw Hogan demand the DEC conform to the province’s policy, Hogan …