Osgoode students help win deportation reprieve for Kazakh family
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Louis Althaus and Brandon Jeffrey Jang, second-year students at Osgoode Hall Law School, spent three weeks in June testing their practical knowledge of frontline immigration law learned through the School’s Community & Legal Aid Services Program (CLASP) to advocate for an at-risk migrant family facing expulsion.
Guided by CLASP’s veteran immigration lawyer, Subodh Bharati, the pair mobilized every legal strategy available to keep the family – who remain unnamed for privacy purposes – from being forcibly returned to Kazakhstan, where they faced potential persecution and death.
Thanks in part to their hard work in winning a last-minute reprieve, the family’s 14-year-old daughter, who was voted valedictorian by her Grade 8 classmates days before the deportation was to take effect, now has a chance of realizing her dream of becoming a doctor in Canada.
“It was a privilege to work on this case and have so much of the family’s trust,” said Althaus. “We were so thrilled to turn it around and get them the best result we could have hoped for.”
Throughout the case, Jang and Althaus filed a 180-page stay motion to the Federal Court of Canada; detailed affidavits to support a humanitarian and compassionate (H&C) application to Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada (IRCC); and submitted a deferral request to the Canadian Border Services Agency (CBSA).
Getting to know the family helped the students add critical information to the H&C application, originally prepared by a Toronto law firm. “It was important to us that we brought their stories to life,” Jang said.
Louis Althaus and Brandon Jeffrey Jang
The family’s 2017 escape from Kazakhstan, where the father, a shopkeeper, was beaten and threatened with death by a local gang, reunited him with his brother and sister in Canada and enabled him to care for his sister, who was suffering from Parkinson’s Disease. In the six years that followed, the family’s three children became fluent in English and excelled in school.
Althaus, who is originally from Germany, and Jang, a Scarborough native, said many law firms would not have had the resources to delve so deeply into the family’s story on a legal aid retainer. The experience “truly highlighted the magic” of Osgoode’s clinic system, added Althaus.
The two Osgoode students said they were also inspired by Bharati’s guidance and will carry those lessons with them.
“Subodh taught us to be courageous and to take initiative,” said Althaus. “He’s willing to fight for his clients on all fronts and to exhaust every avenue possible within the judicial system – and he has instilled that in us, too.”
Bharati said CLASP offers an incredible opportunity to students.
“They are able to work directly with vulnerable and marginalized people who truly need them,” he explained. “In doing so, they see, not only the privilege an Osgoode education affords them but their immense capacity to do good. These experiences will stay with them for the rest of their careers.”
“Just hearing the real difference you can make actually doing work on a case and having a real influence on someone’s life – that was something I was drawn to,” Jang said of his reason for joining CLASP. “I wanted an opportunity to help give a voice to people who need it the most, and CLASP provides a specialized opportunity to do so. After a few months working here, I can truly say that the clinic believes in its students.”
Althaus likewise said Osgoode’s wide selection of clinical programs was intriguing when it came time to pick a law school.
“When I chose Osgoode, I chose it knowing it has the most extensive clinical system in the country,” he noted. “I don’t think I could have worked on a case like this at any other law school.”
Passings: Heather Gore Liddell
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Osgoode Professional Development announced that Heather Gore Liddell, beloved team leader, friend and advocate for Osgoode, passed away unexpectedly from interstitial lung disease at the age of 46 on May 20.
Heather Gore Liddell
Gore Liddell first joined in her role as program lawyer, working on continuing legal education programs (CLE), in June 2005. Having earned her juris doctor (JD) at Osgoode, she was thrilled to return as a staff member. Gore Liddell was a creative people person and ideally suited to creating CLE programs. She was a shrewd businessperson and exceptional people manager. She brought these and other talents to bear as she progressed to senior program lawyer; manager, CLE Programs; and finally, director, CLE programs. She was active in several professional associations, including the Toronto Legal Professional Development Consortium, and the Association of Continuing Legal Education of America. She completed a certificate in adult education from University of Toronto, as well as York University management and leadership programs.
A celebration of life was held on June 9 in the Moot Court at Osgoode. The event brought together family and friends, sharing memories of Gore Liddell’s legendary shopping exploits and road trips, clips of her star turn on “Say Yes to the Dress,” a drag queen, and a visit from an ice cream truck to provide refreshments. Gore Liddell’s ability to connect with people of all kinds, and her tremendous warmth and kindness, were on full display.
Gore Liddell leaves her spouse, Peter Liddell; her father, Craig Gore; her sister, Kerry Haines; her nieces, Holly and Morgan; and extended family, plus a large chosen family. She also had an immense and well-nurtured network of former classmates and professional colleagues.
An Osgoode JD student bursary has been created to honour Gore Liddell ’s memory. It will be awarded annually to a student with financial need and who faces visible and invisible obstacles such as: income; mental health; racial, cultural and gender inequalities; or physical and learning challenges. Donations to the bursary can be made here.
Osgoode professor honoured with Canadian Bar Association’s Touchstone Award
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The Canadian Bar Association (CBA) has named Osgoode Hall Law School Professor Faisal Bhabha as the recipient of its 2023 Touchstone Award, which celebrates the accomplishments of an individual or an organization who has excelled in promoting equality in the legal profession, the judiciary or the legal community in Canada.
Faisal Bhabha
The prestigious honour is one of six national CBA Awards of Excellence presented every year to individuals whose outstanding achievements have made significant contributions to the association, the legal profession and to society. They were presented by CBA President Steeves Bujold during the annual CBA President’s Dinner at Ottawa’s Chateau Laurier Hotel on the evening of June 21. The Ottawa-based organization represents about 36,000 lawyers, judges, notaries, law teachers and law students from across Canada.
As part of the CBA’s announcement, Bhabha was recognized as a steadfast proponent for equality both in the legal profession and in academia, as well as for his volunteer work provided in service of equity-deserving groups.
“I can only express heartfelt gratitude to you for having selected me for this most distinguished and humbling recognition,” Bhabha said in his acceptance speech, adding a special thanks his family, his Osgoode colleagues and his law firm associates at Toronto-based PooranLaw.
“The promotion of equality under the law is something I take very personally,” he added, recalling how, as a law student, he watched in horror as two airplanes flew into New York City’s World Trade Centre in September 2001. But in the ensuing months and years, he said, he was equally perplexed by how Canada sacrificed the rights and freedoms of Canadian Muslims with vague justification, making them carry the burden of suspicion.
“In the cases I’ve been involved in over the years,” he said, “I’ve been struck by the plight of people struggling for simple recognition – as subjects in a liberal society who are deserving of equality – in the face of near insurmountable stereotypes and obstacles.
“My hope for the future,” he concluded, “is that the guarantee of equality be realized more broadly for all those members of marginalized communities who still await its promise.”
Osgoode Dean Mary Condon celebrated the CBA’s announcement. “As a recipient of the Touchstone Award, Professor Bhabha follows in the footsteps of some of Canada’s most accomplished legal minds and some of our staunchest defenders of human rights,” she said. “The Osgoode community is very proud of his achievement.”
Previous recipients of the Touchstone Award include Madam Justice Rosalie Abella, Madam Justice Claire L’Heureux-Dubé, Professor Kathleen Mahoney, Chief Justice Catherine Fraser and Professor Laverne Jacobs.
Bhabha, a former vice-chair of the Human Rights Tribunal of Ontario, teaches constitutional law, human rights, legal ethics and appellate advocacy at Osgoode. He also maintains a varied public and private law practice and has appeared before administrative boards and tribunals and at all levels of court, including the Supreme Court of Canada. He also serves as faculty director for Osgoode Professional Development’s professional LLM in Constitutional Law program.
York University announces 15 new York Research Chairs
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Fifteen York University researchers have been named new York Research Chairs (YRC), an internal program that mirrors the national Canada Research Chairs (CRC) program which recognizes world-leading researchers in a variety of fields.
“The York Research Chair program is an important complement to the Canada Research Chair program to advance our efforts to strengthen research and related creative activities across the University and enhance the well-being of the communities we serve,” says President and Vice-Chancellor Rhonda Lenton. “My warm congratulations to the newest recipients on this achievement.”
This year’s YRCs are the 10th cohort to be appointed as of July 1 since the program was first launched by the Office of the Vice President Research and Innovation in 2015.
“These new chair appointments are the latest example of research intensification at York University, a major priority of our new Strategic Research Plan,” said Amir Asif, vice-president research and innovation. “York Research Chairs receive institutional support that is on par with what their counterparts are provided by the national program. This internal program advances research excellence at York and enhances the research capabilities of our faculty to create positive change.”
The new YRCs will conduct research in a variety of fields that range from human and computer vision to children’s musical cultures to the impacts of climate change on lakes.
The YRC program consists of two tiers. Tier 1 is open to established research leaders at the rank of full professor. Tier 2 is aimed at emerging research leaders within 15 years of their first academic appointment. The Chairs have five-year terms.
Tier 1 York Research Chairs
Rob Allison
Robert Allison, Lassonde School of Engineering York Research Chair in Stereoscopic Vision and Depth Perception Allison’s work as a YRC will study human aspects of virtual and augmented reality. His research program asks: how do we share a common space that is partially or completely virtual? The research results will allow designers to determine whether collaborative experiences and applications are likely to be coherent, consistent and ultimately successful for users. This YRC is administered by York University’s VISTA (Vision: Science to Applications) program, first funded by the Canada First Research Excellence Fund (2016-23).
James Elder
James Elder, Faculty of Health and Lassonde School of Engineering York Research Chair in Human and Computer Vision Elder’s YRC research program is deeply interdisciplinary, integrating studies of biological perception using behavioural and neuroscience methods, computational modelling of brain processes, statistical modelling of the visual environment, and computer vision algorithm and system design. While advancing fundamental knowledge in perception science and AI, this research has application to safer and more accessible urban mobility, social robotics and sports analytics. This YRC is administered by York University’s VISTA (Vision: Science to Applications) program.
Jimmy Huang
Jimmy Huang, Faculty of Liberal Arts & Professional Studies York Research Chair in Big Data Analytics Huang’s research as a YRC will aim to overcome the limitations of the existing information retrieval (IR) methods for web search and develop a new retrieval paradigm called task-aware and context-sensitive information search for big data. This approach, similar to ChatGPT or GoogleBard, will leverage IR techniques to offer an interactive and dynamic search experience. The program’s research results are expected to provide a deeper understanding of user information needs and generate novel techniques and tools.
Lauren Sergio
Lauren Sergio, Faculty of Health York Research Chair in Brain Health and Gender in Action Sergio’s research as YRC investigates the impact of gender on brain health, for which there is little study. The research program will aim to characterize the gender-related differences in an individual’s behavioural response to impaired brain health and design appropriately tailored interventions to optimize their return to work, duty or sport. The research results will provide medically relevant and fundamental knowledge necessary to develop targeted brain health assessments and interventions that account for gender. This YRC is administered by York University’s VISTA (Vision: Science to Applications) program, first funded by the Canada First Research Excellence Fund (2016-23).
Marie-Christine Pioffet
Marie-Christine Pioffet, Glendon College York Research Chair in Franco-Indigenous Relations in the Americas This YRC is dedicated to the study of texts from the French colonization in America with research focused on Indigenous history and cultural renaissance, European scriptural practices and Indigenous oral traditions, Franco Indigenous intercultural dialogues, and the Great Lakes region, missionary laboratory, and intercultural junction. Pioffet’s research as Chair will rethink Francophone and Indigenous identities and the cultural blending that inspired the writings of the period, while promoting a resurgence of First Nations culture and languages.
Poonam Puri
Poonam Puri, Osgoode Hall Law School York Research Chair in Corporate Governance, Investor Protection and Financial Markets Puri’s YRC explores the role of the corporation in society and the impact of legal rules, as well as market mechanisms and incentives on corporate behaviour in several key areas of environmental, social and corporate governance (ESG). These include racial justice, reconciliation with Indigenous peoples and climate change, as well as the role of the corporation and financial markets in times of disruptive technological change. Puri’s cutting-edge, empirical, and interdisciplinary research program charts a new course for the modern corporation, casting it not solely as a profit-maximizer for its shareholders, but as a responsible corporate citizen that genuinely considers the interests of a wider range of stakeholders and is accountable to society.
Tier 2 York Research Chairs
Jacob Beck
Jacob Beck, Faculty of Liberal Arts & Professional Studies York Research Chair in Philosophy of Visual Perception Beck’s work as YRC seeks to combine philosophy and vision science, suggesting new avenues for research in both disciplines. His research explores how longstanding philosophical puzzles about perception can be resolved or recast with the help of vision science. Beck also examines how scientific discussions can be illuminated by philosophy – for example, how numerical perception can be informed by philosophical theories about what numbers are. This YRC is administered by York University’s VISTA (Vision: Science to Applications) program, first funded by the Canada First Research Excellence Fund (2016-23).
Gene Cheung
Gene Cheung, Lassonde School of Engineering York Research Chair in Graph Signal Processing Cheung’s research as a YRC focuses on signal processing and machine learning. Cheung looks at the frequency analysis and processing of big data residing on irregular kernels described by graphs, in an emerging and fast-growing field called graph signal processing (GSP). His research program involves collaboration with both academic and industry partners to apply GSP theory to a wide range of applications including image/3D point cloud compression, denoising, super-resolution, video summarization, movie recommendation, and crop yield prediction. This YRC is administered by York University’s VISTA (Vision: Science to Applications) program, first funded by the Canada First Research Excellence Fund (2016-23).
Andrea Emberly
Andrea Emberly, Faculty of Liberal Arts & Professional Studies York Research Chair in Children’s Musical Cultures As a YRC, Emberly will take a community-led approach to the study of children’s musical cultures that explores issues around sustaining endangered musical traditions by emphasizing the connection between music and wellbeing. The research program will focus on child-led and intergenerational collaborations that amplify the voices of equity-seeking children and young people who tell their own stories, in their own voices. The work will explore how children and young people are active social agents who locate and activate unique and meaningful pathways to sustain, change and transform musical traditions.
Sapna Sharma
Sapna Sharma, Faculty of Science York Research Chair in Global Change Biology Sharma’s research as YRC will seek to gain a deeper understanding of the ecological impacts of climate change on freshwater availability and quality. Sharma’s research will capitalize on long-term climatic and ecological time series collected from thousands of lakes and apply cutting-edge statistical and machine learning analyses to forecast the impacts of global environmental change on freshwater security and help to explain macroecological patterns, drivers and impacts of worldwide lake responses to climate change. The research program will collaborate with researchers across disciplines to develop technological, natural, health and social solutions to water security.
Sue Winton
Sue Winton, Faculty of Education York Research Chair in Policy Analysis for Democracy Winton’s YRC research program will collaborate with multiple public sector organizations to understand the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on education privatization in Canada. Winton’s research will compare policy development, enactment, and effects during and after the pandemic across multiple scales. The research results will create knowledge about local, regional, national and international influences on education privatization and how this process impacts socially disadvantaged groups, teachers’ work and democracy. At York, Winton will establish and lead a cross-disciplinary Community of Practice for new and established researchers with an interest in critical policy research.
Hina Tabassum
Hina Tabassum, Lassonde School of Engineering York Research Chair in 5G/6G-enabled Wireless Mobility and Sensing Applications Leveraging tools from statistics, optimization, game theory and machine learning, this YRC focuses on developing novel network deployment planning, radio access design and dimensioning, radio resource allocation and mobility management solutions to address challenges of higher frequencies like millimeter-wave in 5G and THz in 6G. Tabassum’s research will explore the feasibility of novel multi-band network architectures where THz and optical transmissions can complement the RF transmissions optimally. The research results could form a core for Canadian research on multi-band networks with the potential to connect the unconnected in a seamless, safe and resource efficient manner.
Taien Ng-Chan
Taien Ng-Chan, School of the Arts, Media, Performance & Design York Research Chair in Marginal & Emergent Media Ng-Chan’s research explores questions of how emergent media (new technologies such as VR/AR) can aid in the development of original digital and immersive storytelling techniques, foster solidarity and community amongst marginalized groups, particularly from the Asian diaspora, and lead to better representation and inclusion of these groups in culture and society. The YRC program will allow for future long-term collaborations and creative activities that will contribute to more diversity and inclusion in the emergent media industries, a greater sense of community for marginalized groups and better cultural representation in storytelling.
Denielle Elliott
Denielle Elliott, Faculty of Liberal Arts & Professional Studies York Research Chair in Injured Minds Elliott’s work as YRC will explore how ethnographic experiments and transdisciplinary collaborations between arts, neuroscience and medical anthropology can contribute to a fuller understanding of conceptions of self, brain trauma and mental health. Her research program involves a multidisciplinary team that will explore the embodied experiences of people living with brain trauma and brain trauma knowledge-making practices in the clinic and laboratory, as well as their convergences. The research results will increase understandings of the effects of brain trauma, facilitate transdisciplinary collaborations between the arts, science and humanities and highlight how uniquely valuable ethnographic methods are to understanding urgent health priorities.
Cary Wu
Cary Wu, Faculty of Liberal Arts & Professional Studies York Research Chair in Political Sociology of Health Wu’s YRC program will work to establish a transdisciplinary political sociology of health approach to investigate health inequalities and provide greater understanding of what forces maintain, increase and reduce health inequalities. The research includes theoretical and empirical illustrations that will focus on trust – the belief in the reliability of others and institutions. The program will seek to energize the field of political sociology by introducing a much-needed new research direction that focuses on trust and will advance a unifying theory of trust to explain health inequalities.
Michael Tulloch offers Osgoode grads three career lessons
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During the June 23 convocation for York University’s Osgoode Hall Law School, Ontario Chief Justice Michael Tulloch used the occasion of receiving an honorary doctor of laws degree to impart critical lessons to guide graduands in their legal careers.
Tulloch began his address to graduands by praising his formative time 30 years ago as a student at Osgoode. “Without the legal education and the community that this law school provided me I know with certainty that I would not be standing here this afternoon as a judge on one of the greatest and most prestigious Courts of Appeal in the Commonwealth and North America,” he said.
The ceremony led him to reflect on what it was like when he was in the graduands’ position, when he graduated as part of the Class of 1989. “At the time, I had no idea where I, or any of my classmates, would be 20 years later. But one thing we all had was a lot of hope and a real sense of pride in our accomplishments,” he said.
Decades onward, he assured grads that they’ll marvel – as he has – where that hope might take them. “Many of my classmates became outstanding lawyers, judges and academics. Some with international renowned reputations for their contributions,” he said. As Professor Emerita Mary Jane Mossman’s introduction of Tulloch made clear, he resides among the most successful from his class thanks to an accomplished career as a crown prosecutor and private practice lawyer, before being appointed to the Ontario Superior Court in 2003, to the Court of Appeal in 2012 and as Ontario Chief Justice in 2022.
“There is no doubt that 20 years or 30 years from now, most of you will be distinguished leaders within the legal profession and the Canadian society as a whole,” he said.
Tulloch proceeded to then offer graduands three important lessons that have helped keep him grounded and focused throughout his career.
“Be grateful for the privileged position that we are in his lawyers here in Canada,” he cited as the first lesson. “Where we have an amazing scientific, medical and legal infrastructure. Where political and economic stability is the norm. Where the majority in our society aspire to create a just society with a social safety net that tries to catch those in our society that may be less economically and socially fortunate.” While he acknowledged that there are now notable challenges Canada and the world face, he encouraged graduands to remember to keep those privileges and benefits in focus in order to keep preserving them.
“The world is smaller than we think, and the legal profession is even smaller,” Tulloch said of his second lesson. “Someone used to tell me that there are six degrees of separation between us, but I strongly believe that there’s only one degree.”
Provost and Vice-President Lisa Philipps, Michael Tulloch and Chancellor Kathleen Taylor
He asked a graduand in attendance named Ali Kwinter to stand up as way of example. “You don’t know me, as you and I have never met,” he said to Kwinter. However, he proceeded to reveal that he did know her uncle – also a lawyer – with whom he has worked out with once a week for nearly 30 years. That morning the two men had been talking, and her uncle happened to mention that his niece would be graduating that day. “That’s how I got to know who you are,” said Tulloch to Kwinter. “That’s evidence, in my view, that we’re all only one degree of separation apart.
“The moral message of this is that the world and the legal profession is so small, and we’re so interconnected, that our reputation matters and we must always guard our reputation fiercely. As the end of the day, our reputation is all that we have.”
For his final lesson, Tulloch stressed that, “People matter, especially in a global world.” As the law changes – through technological advances, globalization and equity, diversity, inclusion and decolonization initiatives, to name a few – he stressed one thing should remain steadfast.
“Amidst all these changes, one thing remains constant and that is the power of the human connection. The essence of our work lies in the relationships we build, the compassion we show and the difference we make in the lives of others,” he said. “Always remember that the people that you’re interacting with are human beings, and you need to understand and empathy. To try to relate to their situation and condition. The law is not just a set of rules. It is a powerful instrument of change, aimed at fostering the spirit of compassion, empathy, and unity.”
He ended his address reiterating the importance of working together to create change in the world. “Recognize that our collective strength far surpasses the sum of our individual capabilities. Each one of you possesses a unique set of skills, experiences and perspectives. And it is by harnessing the power of our collective diversity, that we can truly affect change. Remember, the legal profession is not a solitary endeavor. It is a tapestry woven by countless hands, each thread contributing to the greater whole. It is our duty as custodians of justice, to support and uplift one another. In a world that sometimes seems fractured and divided, and at times, politically polarized, or ideologically disconnected, it is through cooperation and unity that we can build bridges, restore trust, and create a more just society,” he said.
“Together we can create a legal system that is truly reflective of the diverse society we serve, and as you leave these hallowed halls today filled with hope, knowledge and ambition, I urge you to strive not only for personal success, but also for a broader vision of a more just, and equitable society. Seek justice not only within the confines of the courtroom, but also in your communities, in the boardrooms and in every aspect of your life,” he said. “Let us rise above adversity fueled by our collective determination to pursue justice, uphold the rule of law and create a brighter and more equitable world. Congratulation graduates, the world eagerly awaits the mark you will make.”
In pictures: York’s Convocation celebrates Class of 2023
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Spring Convocation for York University’s Class of 2023 ran from June 9 to 23, and featured 13 ceremonies at both the Keele and Glendon Campuses.
This year’s Spring Convocation began on June 9 with a ceremony at York’s Glendon Campus, and continued with a dozen more in the following weeks at the Keele Campus. 6,140 graduands received their degrees during ceremonies overseen by the newly inaugurated 14th chancellor of York University, Kathleen Taylor.
View photos from the Class of 2023 ceremonies below:
Osgoode student, incoming instructor sees string of successes in June
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For his acclaimed doctoral research centred on the history of hate speech prosecution, Osgoode Hall Law School PhD student, incoming instructor and lawyer Kenneth Grad won four academic awards amidst another celebration at home.
Kenneth Grad
On June 7, Grad was awarded this year’s Peter Oliver Prize by the Osgoode Society for Canadian Legal History. A few days later, in the early morning of June 10, he and his wife welcomed their second daughter into the world. Later that same morning, he was notified that he had been named a co-winner of the Osgoode Society’s other major student prize: the R. Roy McMurtry Fellowship in Legal History, valued at $10,000.
Receiving both the Peter Oliver Prize and the R. Roy McMurtry Fellowship – let alone in the same year – is a rare accomplishment. Then, on June 16, Grad was also awarded the Switzer-Cooperstock Student Prize by the Jewish Heritage Centre for Western Canada. In addition, he also recently received the Avrom Silver Graduate Research Fund Award from York University’s Israel and Golda Koschitzky Centre for Jewish Studies.
A former criminal lawyer with the prominent Toronto firm Henein Hutchison Robitaille LLP, Grad received the awards for work produced in connection with his doctoral research. His dissertation is entitled “Prosecuting Hateful Speech: An Historical Analysis of Zundel, Keegstra, and the Criminal Law’s Ability to Protect Vulnerable Communities.“
The Peter Oliver Prize is awarded annually for a published work on Canadian legal history written by a student and is named for the Osgoode Society’s founding editor-in-chief. The R. Roy McMurtry Fellowship in Legal History was created in 2007 to help graduate students, or those with a recently completed doctorate, to conduct research on Canadian legal history for one year. It is named for the former chief justice of Ontario, attorney general and founder of the Society. The Switzer-Cooperstock Prize, established by the Switzer family to honour their parents and grandparents, is awarded for the best student essay on Jewish history in Western Canada. And the Avrom Silver award supports the research of graduate students affiliated with York’s Centre for Jewish Studies.
“It’s a huge honour,” Grad said of the awards. “The Osgoode Society does such great work in legal history and it’s just personally rewarding to be recognized by them. The same goes for the Jewish Heritage Centre for Western Canada and Koschitzky Centre for Jewish Studies, which do incredibly valuable research in the area of Jewish history.
“It’s nice that all the work I’ve put in is paying off,” he added, “and it shows the relevance of my research – especially with the increase in transphobia, racism and hate speech, especially during the pandemic.”
Professor Patricia McMahon, who was on the selection committee for the Oliver Prize, said the Society received an exceptional number of strong submissions from students this year, but Grad’s work rose to the top.
“His article, ‘A Gesture of Criminal Law: Jews and the Criminalization of Hate Speech in Canada,’ stood out not just for its clear prose and excellent research,” she said, “but for telling a compelling story about the role of the Canadian Jewish Congress in the development of Canada’s hate speech laws more than 50 years ago.”
Grad said the award-winning paper and his dissertation both combine his legal interest in criminal law with his personal background as the grandson of Holocaust survivors.
“Issues of racism and empowering minority groups are important to me – and that’s how I landed on this topic,” he explained.
He said his PhD studies at Osgoode have been “incredibly rewarding” but very hectic with the birth of his two daughters and the COVID-19 pandemic. He paid tribute to the support he’s received from his PhD supervisor, Professor Benjamin Berger, and his PhD committee members, Professors Philip Girardand Emily Kidd White.
Berger also paid homage to his accomplished doctoral student. “Kenneth is already a tremendous scholar, making creative and rich contributions to our understanding of Canadian legal history, pluralism and the complexity of public law,” he said. “I am so proud of the careful, compassionate approach he takes to his work and so pleased that he has received this recognition.”
Grad will teach a course on criminal law at Osgoode in the fall of 2023.
Professor Philip Girard wins 2023 W. Wesley Pue Book Prize
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Professor Philip Girard is a co-recipient of the 2023 W. Wesley Pue Book Prize, awarded annually by the Canadian Law and Society Association (CLSA) for the best book on law and society published in the previous year in English or in French.
A History of Law in Canada Volume II Law for the New Dominion 1867-1914 (2022), by Jim Phillips, Philip Girard and R. Blake Brown
This year’s award, announced during the CLSA’s annual meeting at Osgoode on May 27, honours A History of Law in Canada Volume Two: Law for the New Dominion, 1867-1914, co-written by Girard; Jim Phillips, a professor of law, history and criminology at the University of Toronto; and R. Blake Brown, a professor of history at St. Mary’s University in Halifax. The book was published in 2022 by the University of Toronto Press and was designated as the 2022 members’ book by the Osgoode Society for Canadian Legal History.
“With History of Law in Canada, Volume Two, Jim Phillips, Philip Girard and R. Blake Brown have significantly contributed to law and society scholarship with a monumental book of legal history,” reads the award citation.
“Comprehensive and meticulously sourced,” it states, “Phillips, Girard and Brown illustrate how plural legal orders – Indigenous law, common law and civil law – were impacted by the process of developing and consolidating a national legal order in Canada, and how fundamental aspects of the Canadian legal order took form between 1867 and 1914. Such a new and outstanding work in law and society is absolutely deserving of the CLSA’s W. Wesley Pue Book Prize.”
Philip Girard
Founded in 1985, the CLSA is made up of scholars from many disciplines who are interested in the place of law in social, political, economic and cultural life. The Pue Prize, one of three main prizes awarded by the association each year, is named in memory of William Wesley Pue, a past president of the organization and a professor of legal history at the Peter A. Allard School of Law at the University of British Columbia who died in April 2019.
In 2011, Girard became the first Canadian to be made an honorary Fellow of the American Society for Legal History and in 2021 he was elected as a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada. In 2021, he was also awarded the David Walter Mundell Medal for excellence in legal writing by the attorney general of Ontario. After a distinguished academic career spanning more than 40 years, he will officially retire from Osgoode in June 2023.
Osgoode grad hopes scholarship will help inspire Indigenous youth
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Osgoode Hall Law School graduand Justin Thompson hopes a major scholarship he recently won will help inspire other Indigenous youth to reach for the stars.
Justin Thompson
The member of Nipissing First Nation near North Bay, Ont., who officially graduates from York University’s Osgoode at Spring Convocation, was recently named a recipient of the $10,000 John Wesley Beaver Memorial Award. John Wesley Beaver was a former chief of the Alderville First Nation in eastern Ontario who served as a fighter pilot in the Second World War and rose to become a high-ranking executive at Ontario Power Generation. The scholarship is offered annually by Ontario Power Generation through Indspire, a national Indigenous charity that invests in the education of First Nations, Inuit and Métis people.
“Indigenous students want to see someone like themselves who is achieving things,” said Thompson. “So getting the award helps to show that anything is possible for Indigenous students and the sky is the limit.”
Thompson, who is the first in his immediate family to attend university, said the award also represents for him one more sign of hope that Indigenous youth and their communities can look forward to a brighter future after many generations of suffering under colonial oppression. His own great-grandmother, Agnes, was a residential school survivor.
In 2014, for example, his community enacted its own constitution, effectively supplanting the federal Indian Act. In addition, Nipissing First Nation is currently developing its own citizenship law, which will allow the community – not the federal government – to decide who is a citizen. Alongside these developments, he added, the community is enjoying better times economically and is eagerly awaiting the results of the Restoule case, a landmark case currently before the Supreme Court of Canada that could see members of the Anishinaabe Nation in northern Ontario win better compensation for the lands they agreed to share with the Crown under the 1850 Robinson Huron Treaty.
“We’ve seen all these exciting changes,” said Thompson. “So I want to play my part in helping my community become more sovereign and to exercise its rights of self-determination, loosening the grip of the Indian Act.”
Even as a teenager, he said, that desire drove his decision to become a lawyer. The scholarship has helped him to realize that dream, he added. In July, after completing his bar admission exams, he will begin articling in the Toronto office of Olthuis Kleer Townshend LLP, one of Canada’s leading Aboriginal law firms.
As an aspiring Indigenous lawyer, Thompson said, Osgoode was his first choice of law school after he completed undergraduate and graduate studies at Trent University in Canadian and Indigenous studies. His graduate research there focused on the issue of Indigenous over-incarceration and the lasting impacts of the Indian Act related to the criminalization of Indigenous individuals.
“I came to Osgoode specifically for the Indigenous Intensive,” he said. “And the Indigenous faculty here have been an amazing source of support.”
The only program of its kind in North America, the Intensive Program in Indigenous Lands, Resources, and Governments (IPILRG) explores the legal issues related to Indigenous Peoples and Indigenous rights through the combination of a rigorous academic experience with challenging placements in Indigenous, Aboriginal or environmental law.
“The Intensive was my favourite aspect of law school,” said Thompson. “It was a bit disrupted by COVID, but [Professors] Amar [Bhatia] and Jeff [Hewitt] made sure we had all the support we needed.”
As an Indigenous law student, Thompson said, other highlights of his Osgoode experience included participating in the Kawaskimhon National Aboriginal Moot and his leadership roles with the Osgoode Indigenous Students’ Association (OISA).
“We took on a lot of important initiatives,” he said, citing in his third year the association’s ReDress Week event, its Moose Hide Campaign against domestic and gender-based violence and its Orange Shirt Day, which featured guest speaker and Osgoode alumna Kimberley Murray, the federal government’s Independent Special Interlocutor for Missing Children and Unmarked Graves and Burial Sites associated with Indian Residential Schools.
York takes academic leadership role at Congress 2023
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By Ashley Goodfellow Craig, editor, YFile
Upwards of 250 York University faculty members and scholars are among the presenters during the 2023 Congress of the Humanities and Social Sciences, where they take an academic leadership role in sharing their research with colleagues from across the nation.
The flagship event of the Federation for the Humanities and Social Sciences – taking place May 27 to June 2 at York University’s Keele Campus – returns to an in-person format this year, following a hiatus in 2020 and the subsequent virtual format in 2021 and 2022. Congress is the largest academic gathering in Canada, with at least 10,000 participants attending this year. The event was last hosted at York University in 2006.
Congress 2023 provides a platform for critical conversations, including diverse voices and perspectives to create collaborations that help drive the future of post-secondary education. This year’s theme “Reckonings and Re-Imaginings” will guide the direction of discussions and knowledge sharing in presentations, panels, workshops and more.
Andrea Davis
“I am excited by this theme because it’s a call to reflection on where we (as scholars, activists, artists and thinkers) are and how we got here,” said York University Faculty of Liberal Arts & Professional Studies Professor Andrea Davis, who is serving as academic convenor for Congress 2023, when the theme was announced. “Rather than simply centering the problems, this theme insists that we imagine otherwise – that we consider what a different set of possibilities might look like and that we come together collectively to create the kind of world we want to live in.”
York faculty and scholars will contribute their humanities and social sciences research and expertise through more than 250 different events scheduled in a variety of programming streams, such as the Big Thinking Lecture Series, Career Corner, Black and racialized programming, Indigenous programming, scholarly presentations and more.
Contributions come from all 11 York Faculties, three Organized Research Units, two divisions and other units, such as the Teaching Commons and York International.
“We took the opportunity to apply York’s strengths as an institution that is known for supporting social justice and social responsibility. At Congress 2023, the University is playing an active role in igniting and sustaining positive change through scholarship, creative practice and conversations that generate new perspectives,” said Lisa Philipps, provost and vice-president academic.
Philipps is also a member of the Scholarly Planning Committee for Congress, which is comprised of York faculty, staff, graduate students and senior leadership, who together have helped to guide and shape the themes and programming for this year’s event through broad consultation with the York community. Learn more about the Scholarly Planning Committee here.
York programming at Congress 2023
The School of the Arts, Media, Performance & Design will feature work from faculty and graduate students with topics exploring culturally relevant pedagogy, accessible tech for Canadian artists, film screenings and more.
Diverse programming from the Faculty of Education – which contributes to more than 60 events – includes re-imagining teacher education, book launch events, the risks of queer lives during the pandemic, findings from a Black feminist qualitative study and more from faculty and graduate students.
Both faculty and graduate students from the Faculty of Environmental & Urban Change will participate and explore topics such as the intersectional feminist approach to gathering and analyzing stories that reconsider risk, and a look at ceremonies of mourning, remembrance and care in the context of violence and more.
Glendon College faculty members will consider the ascent of right-wing populism in Canada, the politics of refusal in the Anaïs Barbeau-Lavalette novel Suzanne, and more.
Research by graduate students will be the focus of contributions from the Faculty of Graduate Studies, with a variety of presentations on diverse topics, including the impact of the pandemic on intimate partner violence in Nigeria, Kenya and South Africa, a focus on mental health and the suicide of Black men, female activists and their relationships with their mothers, and more.
From the Faculty of Health, faculty members will explore how academic nursing leaders addressed the complexities of sustaining quality nursing education programs during the COVID-19 pandemic, participate in a roundtable on transnational Black communities and overcoming epidemics and a panel on promising practices that support aging with equity. Faculty will also present research on Indian immigrant fatherhood in the perinatal period, the experiences of immigrant Pakistani youths, and Asian Canadian exclusionary experiences in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic. In addition to research contributions, a graduate program assistant will perform at the Swag Stage.
Lassonde School of Engineering will have contributions from faculty and an undergraduate student that focuses on designing a more equitable science curricula and York’s Cross-Campus Capstone Classroom (C4), which will be presented in partnership with a student from the Schulich School of Business.
Knowledge sharing from the Faculty of Liberal Arts & Professional Studies will come from undergraduate students, graduate students, teaching and research assistants and faculty, with participation in upwards of 80 different events at Congress. Some of the research will cover racial profiling among Canadian university professors of Chinese descent, re-imagining criminal justice, activism and inclusion, decolonizing transnational human rights engagements and partnerships in Africa, queer rural teacher activists and more.
Osgoode Hall Law School faculty members and a visiting Fellow will present their research on girls and Young Women before the Cour du bienêtre social of Montréal, conflicting interpretations of women in Canada’s thalidomide tragedy and Indigenous laws and jurisdiction for addressing harm.
Faculty members representing the Faculty of Science will share their research on geological fantasies, the stark effect, and offer perspectives during a roundtable on overcoming epidemics and the transnational Black communities’ response.
