A Hamilton public school board trustee is no longer banned from private meetings after deleting a social media post about being under investigation for other social media posts in support of Palestinians.
Sabreina Dahab, Ward 2 trustee for the Hamilton-Wentworth District School Board (HWDSB), told CBC Hamilton she deleted her November post after the board stopped investigating her previous posts.
“This is the outcome I was hoping for,” she said on Thursday.
She said she was disappointed it took so long, but hopes it will spur others to not be afraid to publicly support Palestinians.
On Nov. 14, Dahab posted to X, formerly known as Twitter, saying trustees launched an external investigation at the end of October into her social media posts in support of Gaza. It’s unclear which posts led to the initial investigation.
“I am concerned that this investigation is an attempt to silence me for my vocal condemnation of Israeli apartheid and reprimand me for my posts about protests that were calling for the end to the siege of Gaza,” she wrote at the time.
That November post spurred its own code of conduct investigation for breaching confidentiality. It’s unclear what part of the post broke the rules.
Trustees voted to end investigation
In late March, trustees found Dahab breached the code of conduct’s rules on confidentiality and voted in support of an ultimatum that would force her to delete the social media post if she wanted to continue attending private meetings.
Dahab refused to delete the post and said she would appeal the ban.
During a special board meeting on Tuesday, trustees voted unanimously to end the investigation of Dahab’s posts with no further discussion.
On Thursday afternoon, Dahab deleted her post — which means the ban is lifted.
She said she didn’t delete any posts from October that may have spurred the initial investigation.