Vancouver teacher suspended after telling exchange student to "go back to working on rice farms"

A Vancouver high school teacher has been suspended after making discriminatory, racist, and misogynistic comments towards students in a number of his classes, according to the British Columbia Commissioner for Teacher Regulation (BCCTR).

In a decision that was released this week, the BCCTR said Klaus Breslauer was employed by the Vancouver School Board and the incidents took place  over the 2017/2018 school year, while Breslauer was teaching Science 9, Science 10, and Physics 11 at the school.

The BCCTR said incidents included, but weren’t limited to:

• Frequently discussing his personal life, “which included making comments to the students about his family, his previous job as a bouncer, gambling, his travels, paranormal activity, and his sex life
• Telling a student whose father was from Iran that if “you do not get good grades, you get sent out into the minefields”
• Telling exchange students “they should go back to working on rice farms”
• Commenting during a class electricity experiment that “boys are especially gifted at rubbing rods” and that he himself had “years of experience doing so”
• Asking a student of Japanese descent if they were unable to answer a question because they watched too much hentai or anime pornography
• Allowing students to print their own comments about work habits in their report cards, telling students “he did this because of his own laziness”
• Telling students he believed had cheated on a test that they deserved to get a sexually transmitted disease
• Posting a photo of himself and his wife on Facebook in which the pair appeared to be naked behind a computer

The BCCTR also found that Breslauer was “rude and dismissive” in his email correspondence with students and their parents.

• See also:
  • Huawei CFO Meng Wanzhou must stay in BC to fight extradition
  • TransLink’s new fleet of 49 low-floor community shuttles now fully running
  • Shifting demand for Richmond industrial space due to Massey Tunnel bottleneck

In outlining the reasons for its decision, the BCCTR said Breslauer actions and comments created a negative learning environment in the classroom, that he “had failed to model behaviour appropriate of an educator,” and that he had previously been disciplined by his employer for making inappropriate comments to students. He had been suspended with pay from January 22 2008 to January 31, 2009, and suspended without pay from February 1, 2009 to June 1, 2009.