Assume the Worst: How to Avoid Filing Your Human Rights Complaint Late

Parents enter education systems believing a simple truth. Surely someone will do the right thing. That if you explain clearly enough, advocate respectfully enough, wait patiently enough, the harm will stop.

The system knows this.

It knows parents often do not understand their rights.
It knows families are unfamiliar with legal timelines.
It knows most people assume internal processes are designed to resolve problems, not delay them.

And it uses that assumption.

Concerns are redirected. Meetings are postponed. Emails go unanswered or answered just enough to keep you hopeful. You are told to trust the process, to give it time, to wait until the next review, to see how things go.

Sometimes support appears.

A child is given accommodations for a short period. A staff member steps in. A plan is put in place. Parents are led to believe the discrimination has ended. They exhale. They stop documenting. They hope this time it will last.

Support, however, is often inconsistent. It can be withdrawn quietly, reduced gradually, or reframed as conditional. Parents cross their fingers every day, hoping tomorrow will be better than today. No parent wants to file a human rights complaint. Waiting is not indifference. It is hope.

And hope is costly.

Before you know it, a year has passed.

That matters because most human rights complaints must be filed within one year of the last discriminatory act. Miss that window, and your application may be dismissed before it is ever heard, no matter how real the harm was.

There is an important exception that families should understand.

Human rights law may allow older incidents to be included if the discrimination is part of a continuing contravention. This refers to conduct that is similar or related in nature and occurs without significant gaps in time. What matters is whether the conduct forms an ongoing pattern rather than a single isolated event.

When a complaint is filed, discriminatory conduct that occurred within the year leading up to that filing will generally fall within the time limit. Conduct that happened earlier may still be considered if it is sufficiently connected and part of the same ongoing pattern. This is why fluctuating support matters. Temporary improvements do not necessarily end discrimination if the underlying barriers remain.

If all or part of a complaint falls outside the one year filing period, the responsibility shifts to the complainant to persuade the Tribunal that the complaint should still be accepted. This is not automatic. The burden is on the person filing to prove that an exception applies.

This is not an accident.
It is a system that benefits from delay.

Internal systems are not neutral. They are designed to manage risk, protect institutions, and limit liability. That does not mean every individual actor is malicious, but it does mean the structure is not built to protect your rights.

Discrimination rarely resolves itself through silence and patience. More often, it becomes normalized. Documented away. Reframed as misunderstanding. Reclassified as policy. The longer it goes on, the easier it is for the system to claim it was never discrimination at all.

That is why assuming the worst is not pessimism. It is protection.

Assume the issue will not resolve internally.
Assume delay is working against you.
Assume you must protect your legal timeline even while trying to collaborate.

This does not mean you stop advocating.

You can continue engaging internally and prepare to file. These are not opposing actions. Filing is not an escalation. It is a safeguard.

Parents are often told that filing a human rights complaint is extreme, premature, or unnecessary. What is rarely said out loud is this. Waiting can cost you your right to be heard.

The system counts on your goodwill.
Your exhaustion.
Your hope that things will improve.

Do not confuse patience with protection.

Know the timeline.
Document the harm.
Understand your rights early, not after the window has closed.

Because once that year is gone, the question is no longer whether discrimination occurred.
It becomes whether the system has to answer for it at all.

And too often, by then, the answer is no.