A Toronto police officer’s posts about workplace harassment led to her dismissal

As she approached her 10th anniversary as a Toronto police officer, Firouzeh Zarabi-Majd was not in a celebratory mood. Embittered by the years of sexual harassment she and her colleagues had experienced at work, she began a one-woman campaign to bring her case to the attention of Canada-wide police.

She had already used official channels, but when that didn’t work, she turned to social media.

For 18 months, Ms Zarabi-Majd posted images of pornography as well as racist and sexist messages that she said she had experienced in the workplace.

She revealed details of a sexual assault she had experienced and insulted and mocked officials who she said denied her allegations.

She ignored Toronto police warnings to stop.

Ms Zarabi-Majd said she should have the right – just like civilians – to discuss her grievances publicly.

But in May 2023, she was fired from the police on the grounds that she had attempted to destroy the reputation of the Toronto Police Department and that her conduct constituted serious misconduct.

Zarabi-Majd, 43, appealed her dismissal to the Ontario Civilian Police Commission, an independent tribunal. In April of this year, the commission sided with the police and ruled that there was a legitimate reason for her dismissal “to protect public confidence in policing.”

Ms. Zarabi-Majd is pursuing a separate claim that she filed with a different body, the Human Rights Tribunal of Ontario, a quasi-judicial agency that hears discrimination complaints.

“The fact that I was fired really put things into perspective for me,” Ms. Zarabi-Majd said. “What are they trying to accomplish by firing a woman who was sexually assaulted?”

Her experience reflects similar problems at other municipal police forces in Canada, law enforcement experts say. These remain male-dominated workplaces where female police officers often do not report sexual harassment for fear of retaliation.

In British Columbia last year, six female police officers filed a class action lawsuit against several police forces in the province, alleging that they had been subjected to gender-based harassment and bullying, including sexual harassment.

In Toronto, several female police officers have filed sexual harassment lawsuits against the city’s police department, and a 2020 ruling by the Ontario Human Rights Tribunal described the police force in one of those cases as “poisoned.”

The department commissioned consulting firm Deloitte to investigate workplace practices. In a 2022 report, the firm found that 28 percent of female police officers surveyed said they had been victims of sexual harassment.

The agency, officially called the Toronto Police Service, declined to comment on Ms Zarabi-Majd’s case but said it had implemented anti-harassment training and was committed to improving working conditions.

“Harassment and discrimination have no place in our organization,” said Stephanie Sayer, a spokeswoman for Toronto police.

Ms. Zarabi-Majd was hired as a 27-year-old cadet with the Toronto Police Department in 2008. Her superiors supported her ambitions to pursue an investigative career.

But in 2014, Zarabi-Majd said, she was confronted with casual sexist comments, which she reported to her superiors. She began taking pictures of porn magazines stored in the police station with her cell phone.

Male colleagues regularly questioned her about her sex life and sexual preferences, according to the complaint she filed with the Ontario Human Rights Tribunal.

She said she avoids questions about her breasts and the appearance of female police officers’ genitals.

Ms Zarabi-Majd said the sexual harassment escalated in 2014 when she offered two drunk male colleagues a ride home. When they reached the home of one of the officers, the men propositioned her and threatened to tell their colleagues, her human rights complaint says.

Then, at the end of 2015, an older colleague who visited Ms Zarabi-Majd at home forcibly kissed her and boasted about his sexual abilities, the indictment says.

For fear of retaliation, she did not immediately report the incidents to her superiors.

But Ms Zarabi-Majd broke her silence in 2018 and used official channels to report her allegations, first to her superiors, then to her police union. (She took sick leave from work and continues to receive a disability pension.)

Police offered her a settlement of 1.3 million Canadian dollars in 2019, but she rejected it on the grounds that it would require a non-disclosure agreement.

Instead, she decided to present her case to the provincial human rights court and began her public campaign.

“I went on social media and started connecting with people and it just felt like I was alive again,” Ms Zarabi-Majd said.

Her social media posts contained evidence collected over the years documenting the harassment, such as screenshots of sexually explicit comments made about her by male police officers in a WhatsApp group chat.

She chose not to appear at a disciplinary hearing because of her posts. In one post, she wrote “I will not attend,” referring to a hearing and using a feces emoji. She also accused a former police chief of supporting “sexual predators,” according to her termination ruling.

Police found her guilty of dishonorable conduct and insubordination, and she gave the police the “proverbial middle finger,” wrote Robin McElary-Downer, a retired deputy police chief who presided over her disciplinary hearing, in the decision to fire Ms. Zarabi-Majd.

“Her blatant public refusal to follow lawful orders, her shouting and cursing at superiors both verbally and electronically, her relentless, unbridled contempt for her employer,” Ms. McElary-Downer wrote, “indicates an individual filled with so much contempt and anger that she is unmanageable.”

Simona Jellinek, a Toronto-based lawyer who represents victims of sexual assault, toured the police station where Ms. Zarabi-Majd worked about 15 years ago. On a bulletin board, she said, she saw some pictures of “pin-up girls and homophobic slurs.”

“I remember challenging the police officer who was showing us around and saying, ‘Would you accept this if it was against a straight, white man?'” said Ms. Jellinek. The police officer removed the posters.

Heather McWilliam, a Toronto police officer who began her service two years before Ms. Zarabi-Majd, said she also experienced sexual harassment, including sexual comments and a forced kiss by a colleague.

Photos of her and other female police officers in swimsuits were pulled from Facebook and passed around by a supervisor, she said.

The Human Rights Tribunal found in a 2020 ruling that she had been the victim of an employment relationship that was not the result of “black sheep” within the force, but of behavior and comments that had become commonplace in the workplace. The court awarded her 85,000 Canadian dollars, about half of her legal fees of 150,000 Canadian dollars.

Ms McWilliam, who is on leave from duty, said the agency had tried to silence her allegations through procedural delays, intimidation and non-disclosure agreements.

“The police dragged it out because they thought I would give up at some point,” she said. The agency said the findings were serious and that changes had been made in response to the ruling.

As Ms Zarabi-Majd awaits the human rights tribunal’s decision, her legal fees have reached C$240,000, she said. But she is determined to continue, she added.

The message is clear, Ms Zarabi-Majd said. “If you dare to talk on social media about something that should stay in the family,” she said, “we will fire you.”