Alberta teacher Darren Lund fought hate through empowerment – The Globe and Mail

Darren Lund.Courtesy of the Family

In 1987, Darren Lund was in his first year as a high-school English teacher in Red Deer, Alta., when Central Alberta was being rocked by the trial and conviction of Holocaust denier James (Jim) Keegstra, and the Aryan Nations white-supremacist group had begun operating a training camp near Caroline, Alta.

The educator, who died last month at age 60, helped his racially-diverse students launch the schools Students and Teachers Opposing Prejudice (STOP) group, which inspired the creation of several similar organizations around the province.

For his efforts, he earned the first Alberta Human Rights Award and nine accolades in all, including the National Award of Distinction from the Canadian Race Relations Foundation and Bnai Brith Canadas national student human-rights award.

In 2000, two students asked him to set up a gay-straight alliance to help kids who were getting bullied because they were openly gay or perceived to be homosexual. Today, most Alberta schools have GSAs, which are student-led clubs that promote equality while seeking to curb homophobia. In 2008, he was invited to serve as grand marshal of Calgarys Pride Parade.

STOP and the GSA were just two of Dr. Lunds many accomplishments during a three-decade-plus career dedicated to promoting social justice, diversity and inclusion in school settings and beyond. After 16 years as a high school teacher in Red Deer, during which he also completed his doctoral studies at the University of British Columbia, he became a locally, nationally and internationally recognized University of Calgary education professor. He also earned numerous plaudits for helping to reduce racism and sexual discrimination around the world through teacher education, youth engagement, and community involvement.

After 16 years as a high school teacher in Red Deer, during which Dr. Lund also completed his doctoral studies at the University of British Columbia, he became a locally, nationally and internationally recognized University of Calgary education professor.Courtesy University of Calgary

Dr. Lund continued his efforts in spite of receiving death threats from opponents of GSAs and the STOP program (which has ceased to operate), said Dianne Gereluk, dean of the University of Calgarys Werklund School of Education.

Darren walked the talk, Dr. Gereluk said. Throughout his entire life, he continued to stand up against hate and intolerance. He advocated and served the diverse needs of youth in schools and communities who had less privileged ability to do so. And most importantly, he encouraged youth to find their voice, fostering their agency and empowerment.

And if there is a lesson for all of us, its in the values, in the actions, and in his commitment to continue to do that despite the adversity and the resistance that he faced throughout his life.

Darren Ernie Lund was born Aug. 31, 1961, in Calgary. He was the younger of two children of Ernie (Moose) Walter Lykke Lund and Rita (ne Jensen) Lund. Moose Lund served for three decades as a Calgary police officer, rising to become an auto-theft detective. Rita Lund was primarily a homemaker and, in different decades, held secretarial positions with a bank and a Lutheran church that she and her husband helped launch.

Darren Lund adopted a worldly view while growing up and partaking in many charitable activities with his parents in their working-class neighbourhood of Forest Lawn, which is home to many immigrants, and backpacking in Southeast Asia in the summer after high-school graduation, his sister, Laurette Lund, said.

It was just his approachability and his humour that made him able to tackle all these serious issues, she said.

Dr. Lund at the United Nations, Feb. 13, 2017.Handout

He got his bachelor of education degree at the University of Calgary and a masters degree at the University of Victoria before he started teaching in Red Deer.

His Red Deer classrooms walls and ceiling were plastered with music and movie posters, his sister recalled, while also featuring psychedelic couches and coffee makers. Desks were lumped together instead of being aligned in typical rows, but students were highly engaged in their school work.

In 2002, he objected to a letter to the editor published in The Red Deer Advocate, in which local pastor Stephen Boissoin urged people to take whatever steps are necessary to reverse the wickedness of the homosexual machine. Two weeks after the letter was published, a 17-year-old local man who was gay suffered a severe beating.

Dr. Lund filed a complaint against the pastor with the Alberta Human Rights Commission, contending that the letter exposed people to hatred. The case dragged on for years as the high-school teacher assumed his professorship. The commission ruled in Dr. Lunds favour in 2007, ordering the pastor to pay him $5,000. But an Alberta Court of Queens Bench judge overturned the decision, ruling that the letter was not a hate crime and there was no proof that it had prompted the beating. In 2012, the Alberta Court of Appeal upheld the lower courts ruling.

It was very personal [to Dr. Lund], Ms. Lund said of the legal saga, noting he was subjected to vitriolic attacks from the pastors supporters. It was personal financially. It was personal emotionally to his family. He had to worry about his wife, his kids.

Dr. Lund outside Lindsay Thurber Comprehensive High School.Courtesy of the Family

In a 2008 Globe and Mail op-ed piece supporting human rights commissions, Dr. Lund revealed that he received hate mail and e-mails calling him an evil sodomite, while his then-wife and two children regularly discovered offensive material about him on the internet.

[The death threats] never stopped, Dr. Gereluk said. He knew the risk that he was taking and, yet, ensured that he wouldnt let [young people] down.

In 2017, Dr. Lund was invited to work with the UN Office on Drugs and Crime in Vienna, where he stressed the importance of educations role in curbing corruption, crime and violence, and he served for many years on a UN Educational Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) digital network. He also co-founded the U of Cs Service-Learning Program for Diversity, in which student-teachers work with community groups. As a result, he received a five-year federal grant to share the programs findings with other teacher-education programs across Canada.

In February, Dr. Lund was among 15 appointees from 215 applicants to the Calgary Police Services first anti-racism action committee.

That meant everything to Darren, Ms. Lund said. It was coming full circle with our familys long history with the CPS our dad, Ernie Lund, and our Uncle Norman Lunds long service and now he was contributing meaningfully to it through his lifes work.

Dr. Lund as a young child.Courtesy of the Family

When Dr. Lund was not working, he was a doting father, partook in poker games, enjoyed baking, attended concerts, watched movies, cheered on his beloved Calgary Flames, and celebrated his familys Danish heritage. A lifelong runner, he also exercised regularly and enjoyed many recreational activities in the nearby Rocky Mountains.

He was the most vibrant, youthful, and seemingly healthy 59-year-old you would have ever met, even when he was diagnosed with metastasized prostate cancer, said his spouse Nina Howorun.

The diagnosis came in March, after he began to experience recurring rib pain early in the year. He kept quiet about his health and its quick decline.

I had a few conversations in the last few months with him and he [said], I dont want people focusing on my health. I want people focusing on the work that still needs to be done in this world, Dr. Gereluk said.

Ms. Lund said her brother continued to work until the final week of his life, handling his ordeal unfreakingbelievably.

He maintained his wonderful spirit and his clever and sophisticated humour to the very end, Ms. Howorun added.

Dr. Lund, who died of prostate cancer in a Calgary hospice on Nov. 10, leaves his children, Stefan and Tatiana, as well as Ms. Howorun and Ms. Lund.

The University of Calgary has established an annual memorial scholarship in Dr. Lunds name for graduate-level education students.

If all educators provided an attentive way to create safe and welcoming spaces for all children in our communities, the world would be a better place, Dr. Gereluk said. Darren showed us the way of how to do it and we cant forget that.

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Alberta teacher Darren Lund fought hate through empowerment - The Globe and Mail