HARJOT ATWAL
<Staff Writer>
I remember being very impressed when I first discovered that Osgoode is the first law school in Canada to introduce an experiential education requirement – referred to as a “praxicum” – into its JD curriculum. Beginning with the current 1L students who are set to graduate as the Class of 2015, every Osgoode JD will be exposed to “Law in Action” as part of their legal education through either an experiential course or program.
While I am certainly impressed by the educational value of the “praxicum” requirement, I am even more amazed by the wealth of experiential education opportunities offered by Osgoode as they reflect a strong sense of social responsibility and a rich diversity of perspectives.
In consideration of the deadline for applying to Clinical Intensive Programs is fast approaching, and in light of my Anti-Discrimination Law and Disability Law themed-article from last issue, I decided to focus my discussion in this piece to those two newest options offered by Osgoode.
“We wish to highlight three levels at which the Program operates to achieve its aim. First, the Program serves as a direct boon to access to justice for socially and economically excluded persons disadvantaged by race. Secondly, the Program, structured with a hands-on academic director, enables law students to learn about racism in action, in specific circumstances, and to reflect on strategies to combat it using the law. Thirdly, the Program is promoting public legal education and human rights acculturation”.
Firstly, it should be recognized that the Anti-Discrimination Intensive Program (ADIP), which was launched in 2011 under the academic direction of Professor Bruce Ryder, has been awarded an “Honourable Mention” in the Canadian Race Relations Foundation’s (CRRF) Award of Excellence program for 2012 (Education category). In recognition of the award, Professor Faisal Bhabha and Professor Sonia Lawrence made the following statement:
The Human Rights Legal Support Centre (HRLSC) offers Osgoode students the opportunity to work with a team of 25 lawyers who provide legal services to people in Ontario facing discrimination. Students selected to participate in the intensive learn practical and valuable legal skills through participating in the intake process, conducting legal interviews on files referred from intake, drafting legal documents, preparing for and attending a mediation, and partnering with a lawyer on a file that is scheduled to be heard by the Ontario Human Rights Tribunal (OHRT). Overall, through a full semester placement at the HRLSC, students receive intensive training not only in Anti-Discrimination Law, but also Administrative Law enforcement and resolution.
If you want to know why the ADIP program is so awesome, let’s see what the students and academic director of the program have to say. Four current ADIP students – Njeri Damali Campbell, Nicole Davidson, Nick DiCastri and Kisha Munroe – recently wrote that “[t]his invaluable and practical learning will, no doubt, assist us in addressing racism in our future law careers,” while nominating the initiative for the CRRF 2012 Award of Excellence. Furthermore, Bruce Ryder has saluted the manner in which the HRLSC has integrated Osgoode students into its very busy law office, and claims that:
“We’ve been so fortunate to partner with the team at the Centre. Osgoode students have done an amazing job helping many members of marginalized communities access remedies for violations of their basic human rights, while developing a host of practical skills and critical insights along the way”.
Now that we’ve delved into the awards and honours recently won by the ADIP program that was started in 2011, let’s now look at the new Disability Law Intensive Program (DLIP) which will be beginning in 2013. DLIP is the first of its kind in Canada and has been created in partnership with the ARCH Disability Law Centre, a community legal aid clinic which specializes in defending and advancing the equality rights of people in Ontario who are living with disabilities. As Dean Lorne Sossin has stated:
“The Disability Law Intensive Program is a wonderful opportunity for Osgoode, and its students, to make a positive difference within the disability community…We are grateful for collaborative partnerships with organizations such as ARCH because they expose our students to law in action”.
Those students who are selected to participate in the program will be given the opportunity to gain practical and valuable knowledge in Disability Law through involvement in both: 1) Individual Client Advocacy; and 2) Systemic Policy-Based Advocacy. Thus, this program is a full-year intensive, as one group of six students will be working directly with individual client files while the other group will be doing policy research. As Marian MacGregor, academic co-director of DLIP stresses and explains:
“Working with individuals and policies is equally important…You can’t serve the needs of people with disabilities if you don’t actually serve people with disabilities…The program will move away from charity or medical models of disability that view disability as a personal failing, and instead stress a model where disability is socially created…People can be impaired by their legs not working…but they are disabled by staircase building designs”.
I view this new program to be very important because students will not only gain a deeper understanding of Disability Law, but they will also be exposed to the “murky administrative worlds” that surround the decision-making process of policies related to people with disabilities. Personally, after having written a number of articles related to the reasonable accommodation and required sensitivity that needs to be shown to students with disabilities at Osgoode, I welcome the opportunity to gain a more practical knowledge of Disability Law since it seems much simpler when read about in casebooks than in actual, real life. As Roxanne Mykitiuk, the other academic co-director of DLIP points out:
“The [disability] law on the books often, not always, looks pretty good. It’s the law as it’s practiced and implemented that doesn’t work well…Under the current curriculum, unless law students do a course on disability law, they do not get enough exposure to the subject…And there [are] very few of them in the course; there are very few of them that get any exposure to issues in disability and the law”.
Thus, law students would most benefit from an experiential course or program in Disability Law because it would be hard to decipher the complicated web and network of legislation relevant to this field of law otherwise through self-study. Hopefully, the addition of this intensive program will shine some light on and give some exposure to the “Disability and the Law” course as a great option to take in either second-year or third-year of your legal studies. It really is an excellent class that is offered to both Law Students and Graduate Students in York’s Critical Disability Studies program; thus, you get mixed and varied perspectives in class discussion.
Therefore, I feel that the “Disability and the Law” course is particularly valuable to those who enjoy a range of diverse perspectives and feel a strong sense of social responsibility. For example, I’m currently loving the opportunity to write a Research Paper assessing the Osgoode Audio Recording Policy in terms of the framework approach established by the SCC in its recent decision of Moore v BC (Education), which seemingly guarantees that students cannot be “denied meaningful access to the general education available to all [students]… based on [their] disability”.
Ultimately, both of these new intensive programs boil down to learning how to advance and defend the s.15 Equality Rights enshrined in the Charter of Rights and Freedoms. At the end of the day, do you really not know anyone who has been deprived, in one way or another, of the “right to the equal protection and equal benefit of the law without discrimination and, in particular, without discrimination based on race, national or ethnic origin, colour, religion, sex, age or mental or physical disability”. Or, what about the analogous grounds of “sexual orientation, marital status, citizenship, and off-reserve Aboriginal status”? I don’t think any individual law student can say they have not been either personally affected on the basis of some these grounds, or can say they do not know anyone has experienced discrimination in some of these ways.
In the end, you don’t have to get as excited about Anti-Discrimination or Disability Law as I do. But, I do implore you to get excited about and apply to some of these intensive programs and the various experiential education opportunities offered at Osgoode. After all, read the following quote while thinking about your role as the future lawyers of the next generation, and in consideration of the fact that the “Living Tree Doctrine” has been entrenched in the interpretation of Canadian Constitutional Law since the Persons Case decision in 1929 which established that Canadian women had the same rights as Canadian men with respect to positions of political power:
“Change your opinions, keep to your principles; change your leaves, keep intact your roots.”
–Victor Hugo (1802-1885), French Romantic poet, novelist, playwright, essayist, and writer.