Procedural policing of pain: what happens if I keen?

Keening—the sad, piercing wails often heard at a funeral for a child—is a human expression, older than the rules we follow or the schools we enter. It is what happens when grief overwhelms language, when memory floods muscle, when there is nothing left but pain. It is not shouting. It is not rage directed at others. It is mourning—an uncontrollable, guttural cry from a place beyond language. And yet, in British Columbia, if you bring that sound into a school meeting—if your voice cracks open past the threshold of composure—you may be deemed a safety risk and removed under Section 177 of the School Act.

What Section 177 actually says

Section 177 permits school administrators to bar any person from school premises if they disturb or interrupt the proceedings of a school or an official school function:

Maintenance of order

177 (1)A person must not disturb or interrupt the proceedings of a school or an official school function.

• (2)A person who is directed to leave the land or premises of a school by a principal, vice principal, director of instruction or a person authorized by the board to make that direction
  • (a)must immediately leave the land and premises, and
  • (b)must not enter on the land and premises again except with prior approval from the principal, vice principal, director of instruction or a person who is authorized by the board to give that approval.
• (3)A person who contravenes subsection (1) or (2) commits an offence.
• (4)A principal, vice principal or director of instruction of a school or a person authorized by the board may, in order to restore order on school premises, require adequate assistance from a peace officer.

— The School Act

The legislation includes no requirement for threat, no need for violence, no expectation of physical risk. It simply demands the perception of disruption—a designation left entirely to the discretion of the administrator. 

This means that raising your voice, crying uncontrollably, or reacting in ways inconsistent with professional decorum may qualify as justification for removal. 

In practice, Section 177 is rarely applied to abusive staff or discriminatory policy-makers. It is disproportionately used against the very families most harmed by the system—those grieving, those angry, those desperate to be heard.

When grief is pathologised

Despite my best efforts to mask my despair, I have cried in meetings. Not performatively—genuinely cried, with the uneven, chest-clenching force of someone whose child was being harmed. And every time, the room recoiled. My feelings were treated as a distraction, my pain was cast as a barrier to progress. People looked at clocks and stomachs rumbled. No one ever said “that must be incredibly hard” or “we hear how much you care.”

Instead, I was warned to regulate myself. 

I began to wonder if I had done it wrong—if perhaps I should have cried harder, or sooner, or more convincingly. Or maybe less. Maybe I should have swallowed it entirely. Maybe if I had screamed—just once, without apology—we would have left earlier and spared ourselves years of procedural erosion? If I could have affected an appearance of helplessness…

Cultural thresholds and institutional removal

What qualifies as disruption is not neutral. The line between tolerable emotion and grounds for expulsion is cultural, racialised, gendered, and neuro-normative. A mother crying softly in a pastel cardigan might be seen as distressed but acceptable. A racialised father raising his voice may be seen as aggressive. An autistic parent speaking too quickly or too loudly can be viewed as unhinged. A keening mother—mourning openly, breaking the choreography of civility—will be framed as hysterical and possibly dangerous. And so the system preserves its image not by fixing harm, but by excising those who show it.

Composure is not consent

Advocates often advise families to behave. To stay calm. To play the game so you can remain in the room. This advice, though well-meaning, assumes that access is only granted to the restrained, and that effectiveness requires silence about the deepest forms of injury.

Can you imagine genuinely believing that a child is unworthy of support because their parent cries or that a child is less deserving because their parent gets mad when they are harmed?

The system mistakes procedural fluency for moral strength. And it risks teaching parents that our children’s safety depends on our ability to look safe to institutions that have never made us feel safe. Most of us are desperate to protect our children, so we do behave, writing careful emails, documenting precisely, taking a deep breath before we speak to muster a calm patina—and yet, our children were still excluded, punished, and broken by this system.

The real danger is unacknowledged grief

Section 177 tells us what institutions fear. It is the sound of grief, which is the clearest institutional mirror. 

When a mother keens, the room cannot pretend that everything is fine. When a father sobs, the policy memo fails to reassure. When an advocate’s voice breaks mid-sentence, the minutes cannot contain it. Grief is the rupture through which truth escapes. And systems that cannot hold grief will always fail those in pain.

What would accountability sound like?

It would sound like pausing the meeting. Like someone saying, “Take your time. We see this is hard.” Like someone else adding, “We’ve failed you, and we’re ready to listen now.” It would sound like chairs being rearranged, agendas being abandoned, tissues being offered with kind expressions and presence. It would sound like silence, held without panic, until the person crying feels safe again. It would sound like a space where pain is not a liability, but a clue.

You can apologise

In every Canadian province and territory, including British Columbia, there are laws stating that an apology does not constitute an admission of legal liability.

These are called Apology Acts, and they exist specifically to allow individuals and institutions to express sympathy, regret, or sorrow without increasing their legal exposure. The intent is to encourage humane, accountable, and empathetic communication—particularly in health care, education, and other public services—without fear that saying “I’m sorry” will be used against them in court.

The BC Apology Act came into force in 2006. It defines an apology as:

“an expression of sympathy or regret, a statement that one is sorry or any other words or actions indicating contrition or commiseration, whether or not the words or actions admit or imply an admission of fault in connection with the matter to which the words or actions relate”

It goes on to state that:

An apology made by or on behalf of a person in connection with any matter: (a) does not constitute an express or implied admission of fault or liability by the person in connection with that matter, (b) does not constitute an acknowledgement of liability in relation to that matter for the purposes of section 24 of the Limitation Act, (c) does not, despite any wording to the contrary in any contract of insurance and despite any other enactment, void, impair or otherwise affect any insurance coverage that is available, or that would, but for the apology, be available, to the person in connection with that matter, and (d) must not be taken into account in any determination of fault or liability in connection with that matter.

This includes civil lawsuits, administrative hearings, and disciplinary procedures.

What they’re afraid to say (but legally could)

This legislation is highly relevant when we’re discussing emotionally fraught environments like IEP meetings, urgent intervention plans, or school board complaints. Schools often claim they cannot apologise due to legal risk—when in fact, they can. They are legally permitted to say:

• “I’m so sorry your child went through that.”
• “We wish we had done better.”
• “That should not have happened to your family.”

—and those statements cannot be interpreted as legal admissions.

So when they say ‘we can’t say that’…

They are not bound by law. They are bound by culture, by risk-averse legal coaching, or by institutional values that prioritise non-liability optics over relational repair and the families they serve. And that refusal to acknowledge harm is one of the deepest sources of moral injury for families.

The system is already getting the gentled version

When we cry at home, in parking lots, in locked bathrooms, we are performing the emotional containment that institutions demand. When we show up with straightened posture and softened voice, we are offering them the polished shell of someone who is breaking inside. What happens if we stop? What happens if we say: my grief belongs here. My voice is shaking because what you’ve done is unspeakable. 

Grief is a mirror, not a threat

If that crying leads to removal, then let that removal stand as a testament to institutional fragility, not a mark of parental failure. Because what we are grieving is real, and no system that flinches at the sound of mourning can claim to be serving children. When a system cannot hold the truth of the harm it causes, it loses its moral claim to authority, and it becomes worthy only of historical reckoning—like the residential schools it echoes in silence and control.