Ultra Vires Vol 18 Issue 5: 2017 February

FEBRUARY 28, 2017 | ULTRAVIRES.CA

THE INDEPENDENT STUDENT NEWSPAPER OF THE UNIVERSITY OF TORONTO FACULTY OF LAW

DAVINA SHIVRATAN (1L)

Convocation Capitulation: A Letter from the Editors NICK PAPAGEORGE (2L) AND MAUD ROZEE (2L) ¡Viva la revolución! In the face of overwhelming, vociferous pressure from students, the administration announced that it has reversed its decision to disf igure this year’s Convocation celebrations.

sion in the hands of the 3Ls and 4Ls: the choice between the administration’s version of Convocation and the one that students had been clamouring for would be put to a vote. Yes, the majority rules, and democracy still has some meaning in the halls of the Faculty.

As most of you surely know, the administration had decided to split Convocation into two separate events, a decision handed down to us without meaningful student consultation.

To the surprise of nobody, the traditional Convocation celebrations triumphed emphatically. An email was sent out on February 17 with the f inal breakdown, as follows: 154 out of 204 (75%) students responded, 81% of respondents (125) voted in favour of the traditional celebrations, and 19% of respondents (29) voted in favour of the administration's idea.

The uproar was immediate. It was justif ied. And it can now be said that it was effective.

On February 13, an email from Assistant Dean Alexis Archbold went out to 3Ls and 4Ls, and then to the entire student body, addressing the issue. After offering a specious non-explanation as to why the initial move was not a silencing of dissent, the Assistant Dean acknowledged that having the student speeches at the reception for friends and family was logistically feasible after all.

Thus we were given our Convocation back, and peace was restored amongst students at the law school—at least until the next major, or likely minor, inconvenience.

It is now for the history books to tell the tale of one of the most needless, avoidable, confounding, and downright silly missteps ever taken by the administration.

These snide observations notwithstanding, this email was signif icant for putting the deci-

ALSO IN THIS ISSUE MENTAL HEALTH TOWN HALL

THE IMPORTANCE OF STUDENT VOICES

THE YOUNG PHILLIPS

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NEWS

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Ultra Vires is an editorially independent publication. We are open to contributions which reflect diverse points of view, and our contents do not necessarily reflect the views of the Faculty of Law, the Students’ Law Society, or the editorial board.

Editors-in-chief News Editors Features Editors Opinion Editors Diversions Editors Copy Editor Foreign Correspondent Layout Editor Photo and Design Editor First-Year Editors: Business Manager

Nick Papageorge & Maud Rozee Shari Nathan & Amani Rauff Aidan Campbell & Melissa Smith Cory Bettel & Scott Dallen Rabiya Mansoor & Kevin Schoenfeldt Kassandra Shortt Rona Ghanbari Alexandra Fox Davina Shivratan Louell Taye, Norm Yallen, & SuJung Lee Cory Bettel

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Faculty Council: “Who’s Robert?”

AMANI RAUFF (2L) AND SHARI NATHAN (2L) This month, Faculty Council canvassed a number of items, including Law Ball, deemed days, and asymmetry in the 1L curriculum. The meeting also provided attendees with a glimpse into the only thing more fascinating than procedure: a lack thereof.

Law Ball Rebate

Students’ Law Society (SLS) President Sarah Bittman spoke about the various events coming up for students this semester and announced that, for the f irst time, the SLS will be giving a small rebate to non-drinking JD students on their Law Ball tickets. She said she hopes to see this continue in future years.

Graduate Student Concerns: Mental Health, Funding, Career Events

In her remarks, GLSA President Catherine Dunmore drew attention to three issues affecting graduate students at the Faculty: the lack of consideration given to graduate students with respect to mental health services at the law school; the lack of permanently guaranteed equal funding for SJD students; and the blocking of graduate students from some CDO and alumni events. She also expressed satisfaction that the GLSA has achieved its goal of having participation in the mentorship program expanded to graduate students.

Curriculum and Sessional Dates: Deemed Days, 1L Curriculum Woes

In a welcome development, next year’s Winter semester will start on January 3.

Associate Dean Kerry Rittich presented the report of the Advisory Committee on Non-Statutory Holidays. This Committee was struck last year when a number of students approached the Dean and raised concerns about the discrepancy in the Faculty’s yearly accommodation (through rescheduled classes) of non-statutory Jewish religious holidays, but not those of other faiths.

Other concerns arose around sessional dates. Professors Shaffer and Reaume voiced strong objections to the truncated 1L fall semester. In the Winter semester, 1L classes end one week later than upper year classes, but in the Fall they are the same length. This issue was said to stem from when the 1L curriculum was semesterised and class hours had to be cut as a result. It was suggested that the shorter Fall semester means three fewer classes in the Fall. Professor Shaffer pointed out that this cuts a lot of class time and material, and she has to plan completely different Criminal Law curricula for the two semesters as a result.

The Committee surveyed practice beyond the Faculty and found that no other division of the University of Toronto, nor any other law school, currently cancels classes for Jewish holidays. The Committee also stated that the recognition of the holidays of one religious minority raised questions of equity, fairness, and even discrimination.

The Committee recommended that, going forward, the Faculty not cancel classes for any religious holidays, but continue to mitigate the effects for faculty and students who observe religious holidays. It recommended that, consistent with current practice, students not be penalized for missing classes to observe religious holidays. Associate Dean Rittich stated that there will be no documentation necessary for these absences. The Faculty will undertake to make professors aware of the variety of religious holidays so that they can avoid scheduling tests on those days.

The SLS f loated the suggestion that the 1L semester be extended a further week into December, but the Dean Iacobucci and Associate Dean Rittich expressed concerns about unduly shortening the study period that 1L students have before their f irst semester exams. The 1L SLS representatives agreed that the shortened semester is a concern, but will consult with their peers before expressing views to Faculty Council on extending the semester.

The Dean and Associate Dean stressed that it was necessary that sessional dates be approved at this Faculty Council meeting, and the 1L curriculum issue would have to be put on the agenda for next year.

Unwritten Rules?

After a controversial motion to approve the sessional dates was carried, the SLS raised concerns about the lack of any procedural document setting out rules on how motions are brought and voted upon at Faculty Council, and what constitutes quorum, among other procedural issues. They pointed out that this is a problem for SLS members in particular because of the quick turnover in elected members.

The Dean’s response was that this issue had come up before, and that Constitutional Law Professor Ian Lee had previously determined that there was no need for a written document.

Another Constitutional Law professor, David Schneiderman, voiced his disagreement with this approach, asserting that the Faculty needed to strike a working committee to look into the issue.

Dean Iacobucci informed the Council that these meetings are run like any other, using Robert’s Rules of Order. After further confusion—as one attendee put it, “Who’s Robert?”—and subsequent clarifications, it was suggested that the Council simply re-do the vote that created the controversy. The Dean moved to do this, only to have another professor ask whether the re-vote was in accordance with Robert’s Rules.

These issues were left unresolved at the conclusion of this meeting and it is unclear whether they will be addressed at the next Faculty Council meeting.

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NEWS

FEBRUARY 28, 2017

Town Hall on the Mental Health and Wellness Strategic Action Plan 2016-17 SHARI NATHAN (2L) The Dean’s Mental Health and Wellness Advisory Committee held a town hall on January 26 to solicit feedback on a draft Mental Health and Wellness Strategic Action Plan.

During the summer of 2016, Academic/Personal Counselling and Wellness Manager Yukimi Henry wrote an initial draft of the Plan based on student consultation from the 2015-16 academic year and research on best practices at other institutions. This draft was then reviewed by this year’s Committee, who will continue to rework the draft in response to student feedback. They aim to present the fi nal Strategic Action Plan to Faculty Council on March 30, 2017.

The town hall was facilitated by Committee co-chairs Assistant Dean Alexis Archbold and Professor Anver Emon. After a brief overview of the Action Plan’s development and substance, they spent the majority of the town hall inviting student comments.

One student raised concerns about the availability of counselling services. The Assistant Dean responded that law students have access to U of T’s centralized Health and Wellness as well as Yukimi Henry’s counselling services. In addition, Ms. Henry confi rmed that, although students typically wait two to three weeks for an appointment with her, same-week urgent appointments are available. Students pointed out that an unfortunate side effect of Ms. Henry’s role as an embedded counsellor is that the broader University’s Health and Wellness services prioritize other students over those at the Faculty of Law.

The availability and advertisement of support services during the summer—specifically during the August articling recruit—was also a concern. Assistant Dean Archbold advised that the Faculty of Law is open during the summer and supports are available, and that the Career Development Office’s communications regarding the articling recruit include information about support services. However, the facilitators did not point to any new recommendations aimed specifically at increasing summer support resources or their advertisement.

A number of student comments criticized the vagueness of the draft, specifically that the term “resiliency” was vague and not defi ned; there were no explicit implementation strategies to “remain receptive to student feedback”; policy review is only to occur “when necessary”; there is a lack of explicit reference to substance abuse; and the Plan failed to differentiate clinical mental health concerns and illness from other types of stress. Assistant Dean Archbold and Professor Emon acknowledged these concerns but did not explain these perceived insufficiencies.

The administration of accommodations for students with mental health concerns was also a dominant theme of student feedback. Currently, students with episodic mental health concerns who miss lectures are forced to ask their peers for notes or recordings; alternatively, students may apply to the U of T Accessibility Services Note-taking Accommodation Service.

Students described a number of problems with the fi rst approach, which places the burden of seeking accommodations directly on individuals without providing reliable support. Students

may not want to disclose health concerns to their peers to get notes for missed classes; not have acquaintances in every class; or be apprehensive about the lack of formal policy support.

Professor Emon responded that attending office hours could compensate for missed classes.

Many students were not satisfied with this response, pointing out that many of their concerns were equally applicable to this solution.

Furthermore, even students who register with Accessibility Services for ongoing note-taking must rely on volunteer note-takers. There is no guarantee that students will volunteer to be registered note-takers for their courses. Students asked about lecture-capture technology, like that employed at other law schools (such as Osgoode) and other U of T Faculties (such as Medicine or Engineering). Accessibility Services encourages the use of lecture-capture technology, and states that installing the required systems alongside other AV updates can ease the transition by minimizing the number of system interruptions and staff retraining sessions. Assistant Dean Archbold said that the Faculty had discussed installing lecture-capture software in the new building but refused to explain why these measures were ultimately rejected. The Assistant Dean claimed that it was an “Associate Dean decision,” but added that the Students’ Law Society (SLS) could still raise this issue in the future.

Students also expressed concern that Faculty messaging often frames accommodations as a sort of “coddling” that students will not receive in the so-called real world. The students argued that accommodation should not be framed as a favour, but rather as something that students

are entitled to—an attitude expressed in the Ontario Human Rights Code as well as Law Society of Upper Canada reports and guidelines.

For the last half hour of the town hall, the Faculty and administrators excused themselves so that students could relay feedback to student Committee members with only students present. SLS representatives clarified that they had frequently lobbied for lecture-capture technology but their proposals were repeatedly rejected. They also explained that they had already raised the draft’s lack of specificity with the Committee and were told it would be addressed.

However, they were not given a revised draft in advance of the town hall in order to verify that those changes were made. Furthermore, they claimed that substance abuse was not explicitly discussed in the report because the administration considers it to be outside the scope of the Mental Health and Wellness Committee.

Some students also recounted details of their individual experiences seeking mental health accommodations. Many students described negative interactions with Faculty of Law administrators, including receiving emails threatening expulsion; obscurity and inconsistency in the administration’s role in the accommodations process; being pressured to drop out during meetings with members of the administration; having Accessibility Services-approved accommodations revoked by the Faculty; and being pushed to disclose details of their illness.

These concerns had already been brought to SLS, which confi rmed that they will continue to raise these issues with the administration.

Admissions Office Solicits Transfer Students from US Schools MAUD ROZEE (2L) Dean Iacobucci announced that, last month, the Faculty of Law had “reached out to some Canadian JD students in the US who may wish to transfer to U of T in light of recent events.”

Ultra Vires received a message from one of those Canadian JD students, a 1L from Harvard who received the following email from Professor Ben Alarie: I am writing to you because you told our admissions office last year that you were planning to attend a well-regarded US law school this academic year. On the assumption that this email now fi nd [sic] you as a 1L at a US law school, I wanted to flag to you that the University of Toronto Faculty of Law will happily consider an applica-

tion from you to transfer to the 2nd year of our JD program. If you have an interest in this idea, please visit http://www.law.utoronto.ca/admissions/jd-admissions/upper-year-applicants for details.

As there is an unusual level of interest in transferring to Toronto this year, and we wanted to make sure that the strongest candidates are aware of this possibility [sic]. And because you are a past admitted student to the faculty, we would be happy to offer you a fee waiver to help facilitate your application.

Professor Alarie’s email did not specifically mention Trump, nor the executive order ban-

ning citizens of seven majority-Muslim countries from entry into the United States. This contrasts with the message that, for instance, the McGill University Faculty of Law put out on Facebook, which specifically addressed students affected by the ban.

In response to an email request for more information, Professor Alarie told us that the Faculty will know the exact numbers of American transfer-student applications in late May. The Harvard 1L pointed out that the offer seemed superfluous: “[As a Harvard Law student], you know that you could transfer. It’s not like they’re now offering transfers to people persecuted by Donald Trump… It’s not that benevolent of them.”

Regardless of U of T’s intentions, the student had no desire to leave Harvard. She pointed out that most elite American schools are in liberal bubbles; indeed, Harvard specifically sent out an email pledging that it would protect students from deportation. The tuition she had already paid was also a factor: “I thought about it but, honestly, no one cares that you did one year at Harvard and two years of U of T. It would just mean I wasted all that money.”

From her perspective, the current political situation didn’t change much: “Most of us knew what we were in for; it’s still the same America as it was before they elected Donald Trump.

Now they’re being more open about it.”

FEATURES

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O’Leary Isn’t Canada’s Trump. He’s Our Corbyn.

MATTHEW CRESSATTI (2L) My original intention with this column was to explain that it would be impossible for an extremist or an outsider to win the leadership of the Conservative Party of Canada. I can’t do that anymore. I was going to show that because of the institutional design of the race, the relatively insular electorate, and the minimal media attention, the winner would likely be a mainstream candidate: one with centre-right positions who would be seen as reasonable by a broad swath of the Canadian population. A candidate who has spent years, if not decades, singularly devoted to winning the leadership.

But I can’t.

Right now, every indication is that the victor will be Kevin O’Leary, followed closely by Maxime Bernier or Kellie Leitch. Early on, it was Leitch who drew comparisons to Donald Trump; however, O’Leary has now stepped into the role of the polarizing outsider.

O’Leary’s similarities with Trump are cosmetic rather than substantive. Both are wealthy men who like to pretend they’re significantly wealthier than they really are. Both like talking about how great they are at business (contrary to the evidence). Both are larger-than-life television personas. Both spin their outsider, businessman experience as providing them with the secret knowledge they need to “fi x” the country.

And both are pulling in masses of supporters from most parts of the country.

ish statements alone are insufficient to stop an otherwise popular candidate.

But that’s about the extent of it. O’Leary is adopting a broad, socially-liberal, pro-business program that is pro-choice, pro-legalization, and pro-LGBTQ. On immigration, O’Leary constantly talks up his own Lebanese roots.

Most of his platform is concerned with increasing Canada’s competitiveness and productivity.

Listen to an O’Leary speech and you’ll be inundated with facts and figures. Ontario had growth of negative 0.7% last quarter. Labour participation rate is down 4%. Follicles on my head are at zero.

An obsession with balanced budgets consume a large chunk of his platform. Interestingly, for a candidate running on his fi nancial chops, he often conflates annual budget deficits with overall government debt. This is all standard-issue conservative boilerplate, but O’Leary delivers it in a way that will ensure his own defeat in a general election.

But you need to be otherwise popular. Being a loud accountant won’t get you there. O’Leary’s problem is that, at least thus far, he’s been unable to show how these abstract economic indicators actually impact on people’s lives. Everyone knows GDP growth is good, and that 3% is better than 2%. Everyone would rather the HST be lower while also getting more for it. But these headline numbers soar over the heads of a lay audience. A winning candidate has the ability to explain how these indicia matter to an “average, middle class” (read: likely-to-vote) household. Justin Trudeau won the election because he was able to show those middle class voters what impact his election would have in concrete terms. By taxing the wealthy just a little bit and increasing deficits just a touch, he said he’d be able to deliver real change to voters’ lives. Conservative attempts to explain that this wouldn’t work didn’t offer a competing narrative to voters, and so the Tories lost.

The outlandish things O’Leary has said in the past aren’t going to be the barrier to his re-election. He’s said he would outlaw union membership; that poverty is socially beneficial because it acts as an incentive for the less fortunate; and that soldiers shouldn’t be proud of serving their country. But Trump has shown us that outland-

A leader who focuses CPC messaging on pure economics won’t be able to connect with voters.

A loud, brash leader who insists he has all the answers because he’s smart won’t connect with voters. O’Leary appeals to a narrow section of the CPC base that thinks doubling down on doctrine is the answer. He isn’t the Trump of

Canada: he’s our Jeremy Corbyn.

Like Corbyn, he doesn’t have much caucus support. Unlike Trump, who could capitalize on a momentum-building primary race in a general election that immediately followed, O’Leary and Corbyn have to sit around on the opposition benches for years before anyone starts paying them any attention. O’Leary can’t use the immediacy of this race to springboard into the next.

Meanwhile, the hundred-odd CPC MPs who remain are holding the safest CPC seats in the country. They held their seats against the most popular Liberal leader in twenty years. They should all win re-election, and the only thing that could stop them is a horrifically unpopular leader. He can’t really hurt them, but he can’t help them either. They will wait and bide their time for the next leader. It’s unlikely that mass defections or a leadership challenge will emerge.

But caucus won’t be willing to do anything to help O’Leary, knowing that he’ll likely be tossed in 2019 if the Party doesn’t make substantial gains.

And so, like Labour in the UK, the CPC— and Canada—will be blessed, or cursed, with one-party rule for the foreseeable future. This might appeal to some die-hard partisans, but good government needs strong opposition.

Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?

JUSTIN KHORANA-MEDEIROS (2L) Let me start by saying that I realize not everyone is as riveted by committee work as I am.

Most people would not voluntarily spend two hours observing the House of Commons Special Committee on Electoral Reform while visiting Ottawa. Most people also wouldn’t consider a clause-by-clause in the Standing Committee on Government Agencies at Queen’s Park a labour of love. Nevertheless, allow me to propose a daring idea: in any governing institution, committees should be transparent and accountable as a matter of principle.

I would never have considered such a proposition “daring” prior to coming to U of T Law. Committee work at all three levels of government in Canada satisfies these two conditions uncontroversially and by rote. Yet at our law school, committee meetings are held in camera (in private) by default, unless opened up at the discretion of the chair. Scheduled meeting times and agendas are not publicly posted in advance, nor are any minutes posted afterwards.

This is true of both Faculty Council committees and Dean’s Advisory committees.

The administration and most committee chairs offer the following justifications for current practices:

• • •

Doing otherwise would inhibit frank and open conversation, as members would not be able to freely and candidly exchange ideas if their every word was monitored.

StAG representatives are a sufficient conduit between the students and governing bodies at the law school.

It is Faculty Council that ultimately approves policy, and those meetings are open, and committee reports are openly discussed there.

With respect to the fi rst point, one wonders what is unique about law school committees as compared to their counterparts at City Hall, Queen’s Park, and Parliament. What makes our committees so much more susceptible to this chilling effect?

Perhaps this could be called an unfair comparison, pitting the resources and important work of our provincial and federal governments next to our little law school. Well, let’s pick a comparator closer to home then. The University’s Governing Council Committees at Simcoe Hall are, with a few well-justified exceptions, open to the public. They also post schedules and agendas in advance of the meetings, and detailed reports and minutes are posted online

shortly thereafter (not simply delivered orally and briefly discussed at the next Governing Council meeting, as at our Faculty Council meetings). The same goes for governance at the Faculty of Engineering and, of course, for our very own Students’ Law Society committees.

To the second point, it is true that students could theoretically get in touch with their StAG representative before and after every committee meeting, but this is hardly practicable. Representatives are extremely busy between their academics, admirable service, and other extracurriculars. It is a safe bet that City Councilors, MPPs, and MPs are happy to have offloaded these duties to websites and reporters. If it is more convenient for everyone, why persist with the current impracticality?

As to the fi nal point, there isn’t really much to say. Is there a committee in Canada that has the power to approve policy? Of course not. Yet it is a rare governance structure where the discussions taking place in committees aren’t extremely important in shaping the policy that ultimately does get approved.

As tuition-paying students spending at least three years of our lives here, we are undeniably

stakeholders at the law school. As such, we deserve to be incorporated into decision-making processes as much as is feasible. While I agree that some committees must be in camera (the Appeals Committee and Financial Aid Committee being two obvious examples), a blanket rule is hard to justify. Rather, there should be a rebuttable presumption in favour of openness and accountability.

It is worth pointing out that it is to the administration’s benefit to make this change. Consider the recent backlash over the unilateral decision to split Convocation into two ceremonies: the anger and disappointment engendered by that decision-making process could have been avoided through greater transparency and prior consultation.

Just as Parliamentary information belongs to the public, information about law school governance belongs to law students. Committees should either be open to reporters and students, or detailed minutes (ideally transcripts or recordings) should be provided.

Best practice, as demonstrated by other governing bodies, is to have both. Having neither is undemocratic and unacceptable.

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OPINIONS

FEBRUARY 28, 2017

The Scales of Justice: My Life as a Recovered Anorexic Law Student JACOB ROTH (2L) I used to be anorexic.

Anybody close to me knows I do not hide that part of my life and that I enjoy making jokes about it. While I recovered from anorexia years ago, my past remains an integral component of my present identity. At a minimum, it is an excellent source of shock humour and an excuse not to fast on Yom Kippur.

Many people who are much smarter than I, and who have more experience in f irm recruitment, have advised me that being open about my ano days is misguided. I have published an article in Toronto Life and have a memoir coming out this year (you should buy my book, as I’m going to need the money after I torpedo my employability). Some legal industry experts have taken the position that publishing a work called “Charles Manson is My Hero” would be preferable to sharing my history of mental illness.

I have been unable to reconcile this approach with my conscience. Men with eating disorders frequently conceal their struggles, as they are socialized to believe that body image issues are feminine. Even when resources are available, sufferers may not use them. Availability does not mean access. I have published my story to contribute to changing a discourse that impedes access to these resources.

So, here is a map of my anorexia.

My mind became an incubator for anorexia early in my life. I hated myself when I was a child. I took life too seriously and felt socially isolated. For years, I hid my anxiety and depression from the world, sentencing myself to an adolescence and early adulthood behind the bars of my own mind.

Near the end of twelfth grade, I became vegetarian. I swapped greasy stuffed crust pizza for fruits and salad. Naturally, I lost weight. After I shed about twenty pounds, my mass plateaued.

But I had become addicted to the weight loss. Bodily control substituted for the lack of control I felt over my emotions and how my peers perceived me. Anorexia was like a fanatical religious conviction. I dedicated all of my energy to a lifestyle I believed promised me bliss. I had a purpose: if I consumed one too many calories, ate one too many grams of fat, or weighed one too many pounds, I felt that I had def ied my religious obligation. For weeks at a time, I survived on water and calorie-free foods.

My friends and family begged me to get help. “You’re dying in front of our eyes,” my parents would tell me. “How could you do this to yourself ?”

I ignored them. The Anorexia God was too persuasive. “We’re so close to accomplishing something great together,” the voice would

say. “Let the weight melt away. Be strong, Jake.”

The Anorexia God encouraged me to set moving targets. I did not have an ideal weight. I would establish f ive-pound weight loss goals, fast for a few days, and then try to lose another f ive pounds. Sometimes I stared at food to test my willpower.

But, after dieting for almost eight months, I felt more hopeless than ever. My body was always sore. I was too sick to write exams and too feeble to stand for more than a few minutes. My family doctor had to breach conf identiality to inform my parents that my life was at risk. I was close to starvation.

My weakness undermined the appeal of anorexia. I began to see that what I had thought was control was the opposite. My body was failing. At the same time, my family and friends constantly checked in on me. I developed self-worth while learning that the Anorexia God promised false rewards.

I did not immediately recover. Normalizing eating was diff icult. My mind would try to build a case for self-loathing: “People don’t like you. You’re a waste of space.” However, over the summer, I defeated the voice in my head. I realized that nothing would happen when I exceeded calorie thresholds. I was a member of a doomsday cult on the day after my leader predicted the world would end.

I did not seek external help, other than a few sessions with an occupational therapist and one session with a spiritual healer whom I found on Kijiji. The latter put me in a dark room where he played the harmonium and chanted “ommmmmmmm” for an hour. He was a walking advertisement for saying “no” to drugs.

I do not suggest that sufferers should not use mental health resources available to them. My self-directed recovery is not a model. But for me, it was effective. By the beginning of my second year, my mass was back to being healthy. Although I had put on twenty pounds, I carried less weight than I had ever carried before.

Now, almost two American presidential terms removed from my ano days, I still ref lect on those experiences. I have not removed my mental health advocacy work from my résumé, but it is not a focal point of my job prof ile. My publications about anorexia have come up in only one interview— and I got the position.

I do not know whether sharing my experiences has harmed my job prospects. Nonetheless, I am optimistic that the bar will continue its progression towards acceptance. If this student body’s attitude towards mental health typif ies what we can expect in the future, then my optimism will have been wellfounded.

Dr. Strangelaw or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love Law Follies MAUD ROZEE (2L) The hype for this year’s Law Follies has been building ever since last year’s smashing success. The entire law school was in a state of high anticipation as it waited to fi nd out what hijinks, self-deprecating jokes, and musical numbers that the Follies team would come up with this year.

Fortunately, this year’s Follies lived up to the hype. It started off on the right foot with hosts Jake Gehlen (3L) and Amir Eftekarpour (3L) delivering a polished and hilarious introduction. We particularly liked their willingness to call out certain 3Ls for heckling. Ultra Vires was seated right next to a certain 3L and can confi rm he was extremely annoying.

The Ultra Vires staff was also pleased to be deemed worthy of ridicule in a later hosting bit—although some of us were deeply offended by how little ridicule we actually got (see “Follies Falls Flat” in this issue.)

Student performances were outstanding.

Tali Chernin (1L) brought a fresh take on the role of Scooby Doo. Adam Ragusa (2L) and David St. Bernard (4L) were hilarious in every role they took on. The Shakespearean romance bit by Amanda Kovats (3L) and Jackson Foreman (1L) was described as “gutsy, but I’m glad they did it” by a fellow attendee. Everyone in the “Downtown Legal Services” sketch showed incredible commitment to their roles.

The musical numbers were, if possible, even better than last year. Rona Ghanbari (3L), Gillian Olsen (2L), Sam Levy (3L), and Kaley Duff (3L) are so ridiculously talented at singing that it boggles the mind imagining how they can have any talent left over for law school. The “Crank That (Soulja Boy)” parody left me singing “Now watch me YOOOON!” for days, and the dance coordi-

nation was extremely impressive. The “Hamilton” parody was another highlight.

The video features shone in the second-half.

The bizarrely high-concept “Country Mouse and City Mouse” bit capitalized perfectly on how funny Amir looks next to a toy mouse.

Charlie Millar’s (2L) performance as a deranged judge in the Law and Order parody will haunt me. The “Professors read mean tweets” segment was a crowd pleaser, and the Ben Alarie/Blue J Legal “Her” parody made me cry tears of joy. Seriously, Alarie defending his humanity in response to a tweet accusing him of being a robot made my night.

A shout-out goes to the Dean for (a) sitting through the entire show and (b) his truly hilarious Godfather impression. Shout-outs also to Professors Phillips, Niblett, Fernandez, Shaffer, Drassinower, and Alarie for their enthusiastic participation.

The show was clearly well rehearsed and well managed, although it was a little long and started to drag a bit by the end—as is tradition. It also seemed heavily focussed on the topics of stress culture and the Bay Street experience. Those are, to be sure, two classic topics of student discourse, but it would have been interesting to see a greater diversity of topics and experiences represented.

Overall, Law Follies 2017: Dr. Strangelaw or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Law was a resounding success. Everyone in the audience was charmed and delighted by the singing, dancing, and sheer folly that the team presented. I left impressed by the comedic and performance talent possessed by this class, and feeling like I was part of a supportive and close community.

Congratulations to all involved!

6 | FEBRUARY 28, 2017

OPINIONS

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1L Recruit: To Apply or Not To Apply SUJUNG LEE (1L) 1Ls hit the ground running in the new year with the 1L Recruit: applications for firm and government jobs came due January 25, and applications for Faculty positions were due on February 6.

While the CDO warned us about these dates in first semester, many of us did not expect the application process to be as overwhelming as it was. For one, we were still recovering from the stress of first semester exams without having had the chance to celebrate New Year’s properly. On top of a heavy reading load and first-year moot tryouts, there was a lot to do in the first weeks of the semester. “Should I apply?” seemed a daunting question amidst an already stressful schedule.

Most of us spent first semester not worrying about jobs at all. We were told to focus on our academics, since it was rare for 1Ls to get legal jobs anyway, and that 1L summer was our last “free” summer. Despite this, the unspoken rule seemed to be that we apply anyway. At the recruitment information ses-

top of your readings.

sion, the message was that even though there are only a handful of positions available, there’s no harm in applying.

Issues with the application process itself also perpetuate this pressure. It was unclear why firm tours were crammed in at the same time as the application process, instead of during first semester. Students effectively had to decide which firms to apply to before getting a sense of what those firms are really like. Moreover, we didn’t receive our first semester grades until five days before the application deadline. Since grades are a key determinant of who gets a 1L interview, this uncertainty exacerbated our anxiety about whether we should even bother applying.

But harm is possible. Crafting your application is time-consuming. You have to research firms as well as write cover letters and edit them at least a few times over. This means less time for schoolwork, which in 1L seems to be more important than other years (as upper years keep telling us). More importantly, the pressure to apply can negatively impact students’ mental health. While there are certainly those who are eager to start their Bay Street careers, many students—including myself—applied because of the fear of missing out. These students were not sold on firm or government jobs, but felt they would be disadvantaged by not getting experience writing resumes or cover letters. This is not merely unproductive—people tend to craft better applications when they are genuinely interested in what they want to do—but it is unproductive to the detriment of other more worthy goals, like keeping on

All of this made it easy to spiral into the all-toofamiliar law school existential crisis, prompting questions like: What am I doing here? What is my purpose in life? What if my law school debt follows me to the grave?

And this should not be the case. The 1L recruitment process encourages acting before thinking.

The law school can do more to support students who are either on the fence about applying or decide not to participate at all. For example, they can hold information sessions to assuage student anxieties around not participating in the recruit, assuring them that this does not affect our chances of success in the future. Upper-year students who did not participate in the 1L recruit, or had an unsuccessful experience, can also share their stories. Alternatively, the school can provide tips on how to look for legal experience in the summer in a more realistic way—perhaps information on volunteering opportunities that do not require such a high degree of time commitment.

After all, it doesn’t make sense for 1Ls to rush into something after only a semester of law school. We should instead take this time to figure out the different areas of law, and to actually appreciate what we’re studying in class. Most importantly, we need to support our fellow classmates in whatever they decide to do, and actively combat the dangers of law school hive mind.

And That’s the Waaaayyyy the News Goes NICK PAPAGEORGE (2L)

Everything is fine. There’s an infinite number of realities, Morty.

As we descend further into absurdity, I find myself taking greater solace in the world of Rick and Morty—a world where absurdity is the lone constant. If only we were fortunate enough to live in their world: if your current reality doesn’t quite suit you, just fire your portal gun and hop on over to a more palatable existence.

However, an infinite number of realities sounds less like an enticing reverie and more like an accurate description of the world we’re hopelessly tethered to. Plenty of ink has been spilt lamenting our collective retreat into intellectual bubbles. To make matters worse, these bubbles have now been overrun, whether in jest or otherwise, by Orwellian terms like “fake news” and “alternative facts.” False is true. Small is big. War is peace.

But I digress. As Marie Henein most eloquently put it, “the Orwellian analogies seem to write themselves these days.”1 Yet this very fact—the idea that the twenty-first century is so much like Orwell’s dystopia that it goes without saying—is truly disconcerting. Even more unsettling is the realization that the common citizen and the career newsperson are equally paralyzed by this absurdist onslaught.

In the pages of this paper, we’ve tried to tackle that most persistent question: What is to be done? Those were big-picture ruminations for a big-picture question. However, as a newspaper, I believe we must also address this paralysis at a more technical level.

We must say a word or two about how to approach the unending, confounding flow of (dis)information.

Call it as you see it: we used to have more descriptive words for “fake news” and “alternative facts.” We called this sort of drivel misinformation and propaganda, respectively. It seems we ought to return to these characterizations; the terms “fake news” and “alternative facts” have already become so trite that they’re nothing more than late-night television fodder. More precise and withering terms for this nonsense are needed in order to push back against it.

Be your own gatekeeper: it used to be that a venerable name atop the page—The New York Times, The Globe and Mail—meant you were getting the highest quality scoop. No more. Prestige can no longer be equated with accuracy. These days, if you want reliable (or even passable) information, you need to go searching for it—and probably in multiple locations, some well known, others less so. If you think this sounds like being forced to do the publisher’s duty, you’re not wrong, but they’re now derelict. You can either pick up the slack or be left behind.

Know who’s speaking: this goes together with being your own gatekeeper. Newspapers today have a tendency to disclose minimal details about the backgrounds of their authors and contributors.

Yet the work of these writers is invariably coloured by the think-tanks and political parties they are affiliated with and actively bolstering. It now falls to the reader to look further into the author’s background, especially when coming across what looks like an anodyne opinion piece. Luckily, we live in an age where this sort of background takes little time to unearth.

WHEN IT’S DAY ONE OF YOUR LEGAL CAREER, YOU WANT A LAW FIRM THAT’S AS EXCITED FOR NEW OPPORTUNITIES AS YOU ARE.

Disconnect: but not in a defeatist way. Being interminably bombarded with information is exhausting, and at some point it is more harmful than helpful. Take a break. Sit back and think about the merits of all those evanescent news-bites rather than clicking on the next one. Or, better yet, curl up with a book or two (I concede that this is something of a luxury for law students) for a more masterly take on whatever modish topics you’ve been reading about.

Chances are this minor act is more than some of the hacks churning out those news-bites have done.

This is by no means an exhaustive list. And, for some readers, it may be nothing new. But it is an essential starting point as we embark on what feels like a journey into an alternate, nonsensical reality.

Wubba lubba dub dub.

Author’s Note: For more on this theme, see Blur: How to Know What’s True in the Age of Information Overload, by Bill Kovach and Tom Rosenstiel.

1 Marie Henein, “We need more facts, less extreme vetting,” The Globe and Mail, 31 January 2017, via http://www.theglobeandmail. com/opinion/more-facts-less-extreme-vetting/article33850055/.

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OPINIONS

FEBRUARY 28, 2017

On the Importance of Student Voices at U of T Law KASSANDRA SHORTT (3L) At the October 2015 Faculty Council meeting, Dean Iacobucci essentially asked why law students can’t be more positive. I’ve heard similar sentiments from fellow students as well. What’s all the fuss about?

I don’t purport to speak for all students but, from my observations and experience, students care. Students care about making the law school a better place. Students care about improving the legal profession.

For example, there are legitimate, yet divergent, arguments to be made on the role of legal education and how it ought to be fi nanced.

It should be possible for all stakeholders to come together and have a reasonable conversation about these important issues. However, this has proved all but impossible at U of T Law for some time now, at least for student stakeholders.

Take the above-referenced Faculty Council meeting. Dean Iacobucci condemned students for taking what he characterized as an “adversarial” approach in requesting data.

But the administration has never made any alternative possible as it refuses to share its data on accessibility or to collect any more.

Yes, there are some students who so fundamentally disagree with tuition increases and reduced public support for legal education

that they will likely never be satisfi ed with any answer the administration could offer.

Yet there are also students who are open to the administration’s position, but are sincerely concerned about the lack of transparency.

These students want fi rst-hand assurance that accessibility is being rigorously monitored. Either way, all of these perspectives should be heard and considered. Citing the lack of productivity of select views is an inadequate rationale for closing the discussion entirely.

Perhaps it is naïve to imagine that the administration would have a vision of the law school that includes meaningful consideration of student interests. U of T Law, however, sells itself on the consumer perspective—come to U of T Law; your tuition pays for excellence!—and thereby invites comment from these students qua consumers of legal education. Students clearly want to comment and participate in the discussion but are told again and again that their perspectives are not worthwhile. This is the wrong approach to students caring.

But tuition is just one example of many.

From accommodations and mental health policy to exam reuse to the decanal selection process, student perspectives are occasionally aired but rarely truly considered in the governance of the law school. Yet students are

members of the U of T Law community, just as faculty, alumni, and, yes, the administration are. Most charitably, the latter appears to have lost sight of the student interest as a potentially valuable voice in our community.

However, the law school never wastes an opportunity to brag about its students. With a student body so impressive, why not consider what we have to say about our own institution, in which we have invested so much?

Moreover, universities are meant to be bastions of ideas. The exchange of ideas and considered discussion is at the heart of U of T Law’s raison d’être as an academic institution.

Suppressing student voices in policy discussions at the law school is antithetical to this mission. The administration should seek to foster such discussions, not stifl e any attempt to deviate from the institutional line. This approach breeds cynicism and animosity at a time when law schools should be promoting positive engagement by law students in the face of challenges to the law school and the legal profession. There are also devastating effects on the feeling of community at the law school.

Even so, I will attempt to frame this in a perspective the administration is most likely to understand: this approach will harm the law school in the long run. By failing to remotely consider the student experience, U of T Law

is alienating an entire generation of future alumni, and with this making the most convincing case against donating to this institution that I can imagine. I personally will never donate to U of T Law and know many of my classmates feel the same.

This brings us to the recent debacle regarding the administration’s unilateral changes to the convocation celebration for the Class of 2017 onward, and subsequent backtracking.

It is wrong to take this platform away from students, regardless of your opinion of the substance of the critiques of the law school featured in recent valedictorian addresses.

This speech by a democratically elected student representative is one of the few remaining opportunities for students to feel as though they are heard after three or more years of being ignored when trying to speak. It has taken on outsized signifi cance given the current culture of the law school administration.

It’s what we have.

Rather than panicking over what students might have to say about various issues, the administration should reframe its thinking: this is just students caring loudly at you. I think we all want to make the law school better, even if we disagree about how to do so. But let’s at least have a meaningful conversation.

It will be worthwhile.

Executive Orders: Absolute or Absolutely Crazy?

DAVINA SHIVRATAN (1L) President Trump has never been one to shy away from controversy, and his recent wave of executive orders have been nothing if not controversial.

In only the f irst month of his Presidency, Trump has signed a f lurry of executive orders. A few notably tendentious examples are those ordering the construction of a wall along his country’s southern border with Mexico, a reduction of f inancial regulations, and increased intelligence-sharing in order to target drug cartels.

Arguably, President Trump’s most contentious action is the travel ban on refugees coming from seven Muslim-majority countries. One federal judge in Seattle has temporarily halted enforcement of this entire order —a decision upheld by the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit. However, the order’s initial issuance and the chaos that ensued raised concerns about the legality of Trump’s orders generally.

Executive orders are beset by controversy because they do not require Congressional approval, allowing the president to bypass Congress. A lthough no provision in the US Constitution expressly permits these orders, their authority is rooted in Article II of the Constitution, which states: “Executive power shall be vested in a president of the United States of America." The broad source of this authority has created concern regarding the extent of the power of executive orders. Unfortunately for those dismayed by President Trump’s actions, executive orders have rarely been overruled and have been successfully used by former presidents to make signif icant policy changes.

Executive orders are typically perceived as an absolute application of the President’s power; however, in practice, the Constitution has a self-established system of checks and balances that limits presidential overreach. The federal judiciary,

Congress, and the Of f ice of Legal Counsel (OLC) are important overseers of executive orders.

cated by Congress, so refusal to provide f inancial support can prevent an order from being carried out.

As shown by the halt to President Trump’s travel ban, executive orders are subject to federal court review. They can be challenged in federal court and can have their carrying out enjoined, or be ruled unconstitutional. Review by the federal judiciary ensures that executive orders are not completely outside the scope of American Constitutional values.

Another limit that is often forgotten is that of the OLC, an of f ice under the delegation of the Attorney General in the Department of Justice. This of f ice is responsible for reviewing all proposed executive orders and presidential proclamations as well as advising on constitutional concerns and the limits of executive power. It also advises on the form and legality of all executive orders, although it does not address policy concerns of proposed orders.

Congress can also prevent the successful implementation of an executive order by refusing to fund the action. In practice, executive orders are only supposed to execute the law, not make it. As such, the immediate ef fect of an order to “build the wall” is to direct the US Secretary of Homeland Security to look into the planning and funding of a wall. Presidents can only make orders that spend money allo-

In light of these systems for review, it should be reassuring that executive orders are not a peremptory and absolute power.

Nevertheless, given the broad extent of their authority and the President’s alarming invectives against the judiciary, an active public voice is crucial to keeping fundamental American values alive.

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FEBRUARY 28, 2017

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Rights Review

The student-led publication of the International Human Rights Program Co-Editors-in-Chief: Yolanda Song and Rona Ghanbari Editors: Karlson Leung, Sarah Firestone

IMMIGRATION DETENTION HARMS CANADIAN FAMILIES

By Yolanda Song (3L) cannot legally challenge their placement in detention because they are not “detained”—in theory, they have the freedom to leave the facility at any time, without their parents. The artificiality of this freedom is abundantly clear when one considers that, between 2011 and 2015, 85% of Canadian children in the Toronto detention centre were younger than six years old, and nearly twothirds were younger than two.

Moreover, children who are separated from their detained parents do not have access to any procedures for addressing the damage that separation has done to them. Their parents undergo regular detention review hearings, in which the quasi-judicial Immigration Division determines whether their continued detention is justified.

However, adjudicators do not adequately consider the interests of detainees’ children. Selena said that the adjudicator at her detention review “didn’t mention Alicia at all.”

Last August, Minister of Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness Ralph Goodale announced the beginning of reforms to the immigration detention regime, with a particular focus on ending child detention. In doing so, Minister Goodale must also pay diligent attention to families like Alicia’s that are torn apart by immigration detention. To effectively address the impact of these practices on children, the government must recognize that options other than detention and separation are available. Authorities should implement alternatives to detention that allow children to live with their parents in the community.

These include reporting obligations, cash bonds, and community supervision.

Illustration by Ryookyung Kim. Image courtesy of International Human Rights Program.

When 8-year-old Alicia visits her mother Selena at the immigration detention facility in Toronto, they speak through phones on either side of a plexiglass partition. There are no openings through which she can hold her mother’s hand as she asks, “Mommy, why do they want to separate us?”

Selena told me this through fits of tears when IHRP Senior Fellow Hanna Gros, Director Samer Muscati, and I spoke with her last November at the Toronto immigration detention centre. Selena and Alicia’s story, as well as those of five other families, is included in the IHRP’s new report entitled Invisible Citizens: Canadian Children in Immigration Detention. The report shows that Alicia is just one of the hundreds of Canadian children who have been hurt by Canada’s immigration detention practices. Between 2011 and 2015, at least 227 Canadian children were housed in immigration detention with their parents. Many others, like Alicia, are separated from their detained parents and left in the care of relatives, friends, or

hrprightsreview

child protection agencies.

Canadian children are affected by immigration detention when their migrant parents are arrested by the Canada Border Services Agency (CBSA). This generally occurs when CBSA officers believe that the parents will not comply with immigration procedures and pose a flight risk.

Detained parents are given a perverse ultimatum: live with their children in detention, or separate from them. Families face this impossible choice even though, in the vast majority of cases, the parents do not pose a danger to the public and have not been charged with any crime.

Unsurprisingly, detention is no place for children.

An IHRP report released in September 2016, entitled “No Life for a Child”: A Roadmap to End Immigration Detention of Children and Family Separation, found that life in detention is “woefully unsuited for children.” Children who are detained for even brief periods can suffer serious psychological harm, including symptoms of

post-traumatic stress, depression, and anxiety that may persist long after the child is released. In a letter to Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, one Canadian child described detention as a “cage”.

Family separation is no better. Medical evidence indicates that children who are separated from their detained parents experience intense and lasting emotional distress. In the week following her mother’s arrest, Alicia would wake up crying in the middle of the night. She no longer wanted to play during recess. “Everything is different,” Selena said.

For Canadian children affected by immigration detention, mechanisms for recourse are sorely lacking. The Immigration and Refugee Protection Act does not allow for the detention of Canadian citizens. Because of this, CBSA does not issue detention orders against Canadian children. Instead, CBSA treats Canadian children in immigration detention as “guests” of their detained parents. Canadian children who are “guests”

ihrp.law.utoronto.ca/page/rights-review-magazine

These community-based alternatives alleviate the terrible mental health consequences of detention and family separation, and allow for the greater protection of children’s rights to freedom, health, and family unity. They do this while continuing to ensure that individuals will appear for immigration proceedings. A 2011 UNHCR study found that, around the world, approximately 90 percent of asylum-seekers cooperate with authorities in immigration procedures when they are given alternatives to detention. Notably, the study identified that compliance is higher when authorities treat individuals with dignity, communicate their rights and obligations clearly, and provide adequate material, legal, and case management support. As a final benefit, communitybased alternatives cost a mere fraction of the average $21.5-million that the government spends on immigration detention centres each year (based on data from 2010-2014).

Canada must do more for Canadian families like Alicia and Selena’s. As our immigration detention system undergoes the reform it so desperately needs, policy-makers must focus on the development of viable community-based alternatives to detention that will be regularly implemented by authorities. Anything less, and we simply swap out cages for plexiglass partitions.

rightsreview

10 | FEBRUARY 28, 2017

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Rights Review

The student-led publication of the International Human Rights Program

SPEAKING WITH CHIEF COMMISSIONER OF THE ONTARIO HUMAN RIGHTS COMMISSION: RENU MANDHANE

By Rona Ghanbari (3L) and Hanna Gros (U of T alumni and IHRP Senior Fellow)

Renu Mandhane: Chief Commissioner of the Ontario Human Rights Commission and Former International Human Rights Program Director at the University of Toronto. Image by Jim Rankin In October 2015 one of the University of Toronto’s very own was nominated as Chief Commissioner of the Ontario Human Rights Commission (OHRC). Renu Mandhane, formerly the director of the International Human Rights Program (IHRP), has been Chief Commissioner for over a year now. The Rights Review team paid her a visit at the OHRC to discuss her transition between roles, and learn about the OHRC’s work.

RG: With this profile piece, we want to get a sense of life post-IHRP, and also get your perspective on some advocacy initiatives that you started at the IHRP, many of which are on-going and have grown! So to start, could you describe the transition from the IHRP to the OHRC? RM: It was obviously a huge transition, and there are good and more challenging aspects.

Starting with the good: it’s a huge honor to have a platform for people to listen to the views I’ve had for a long time. I’m able to meet with Ministers basically by picking up the phone, which you aren’t able to do if you’re at a university or an NGO because that access

isn’t really there. We also have a staff of 50 people who are extremely informed, knowledgeable, and passionate about human rights, which is very rewarding. Having 50 professionals who are working on this mandate feels very different compared to the IHRP where you’re working with incredible students but there’s not as much continuity.

One of the main challenges however is that we are a statutory body, so we are constrained by our statute. The statute has a very narrow view of human rights, which is essentially focused exclusively on non-discrimination. Some of the issues that I really care about – things like immigration detention for example – are hard to fit within the OHRC’s narrow mandate. At the IHRP we could work on anything that was interesting and related to human rights. With a statutory mandate, you are always worried about exceeding jurisdiction, so the first question is always, “is this something we can work on?” and the reality is that there are a large number of issues that we can’t take on.

RG: That actually seems like a significant

“...No matter what the impact of the projects you do at the IHRP, the biggest impact is the students who come out of the program and go on to do all sorts of amazing things.”

constraint, and a delicate balance to strike.

RM: Of course, the more powerful the institution, the more constraints there are on that power. One of the things I’ve had to learn is that, people actually care what I say – if I opine on something on Twitter, people believe that the OHRC is pronouncing on whether something is right or wrong. So that means you have to be far more careful in how you weigh in on the public debate on an issue.

The level of public scrutiny and expectation is much higher. At the IHRP there isn’t a level of expectation from the public as to the work that you do; you hope that your work will drive social change and resonate with the public, but there is no expectation that you’ll deliver that. Whereas here, we serve the province of Ontario, and that’s nearly 10 million people that we are expected to serve. So there is a lot of expectation about what this institution should be able to do and the results we are meant to achieve.

RG: Is there anything in particular that you miss about being the IHRP Director?

RM: I really miss working with students, partially because no matter what the impact of the projects you do at the IHRP, the biggest impact is the students who come out of the program and go on to do all sorts of amazing things. So even if the project they worked on didn’t result in meaningful change itself, the fact that they themselves go out into the

world and work on human rights or volunteer, or even just bring that perspective to wherever they are – that’s the impact. Inherently, the IHRP has capacity building as one of its outcomes. No matter what happened on our files, you always felt like you were contributing by just working with students, mentoring them. There are lots of students I still keep in touch with. I feel personally invested in their careers, and I think that they are amazing people doing amazing things, and that’s really gratifying. Here the work is much more driven by the substantive output and the impact that you have.

RG: Well certainly many students at U of T feel very fortunate to have had your mentorship.

Focusing in on some specific advocacy initiatives, we wanted to get your perspective on immigration detention and solitary confinement, which are both issues you worked on intensely. As an advocate, what drew you to these particular issues?

RM: I’m always driven to people who are “invisible.” If you are in a jail, you are almost by definition “invisible.” These are people who cannot easily bring their stories forward: they are hidden from public view and public scrutiny, and they are hidden in a unique way.

What I find fascinating about immigration detention and solitary confinement is that, as a

FEBRUARY 28, 2017

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society we empower the state to take away our liberty, take away our kids, and to do all sort of things that can have a significant impact on our lives. Implicit in that is the fiduciary duty that the state won’t abuse that power. These issues are so compelling because it’s really about mediating the power of the state. When do we as a society get to say, “Actually we the public have not empowered you to do that”?

To me that’s different than the direct racism or discrimination that you might see in an employment situation or a housing situation, because the minute government is the alleged discriminator it’s about a breach of the public’s trust – it places the issue on a different level.

What drew me to the immigration detention issue specifically*, and what still fascinates me about it, is that this was a serious human rights issues under our nose and I don’t feel like the public even knew about it. (Author’s note: The IHRP began its work in immigration detention under Renu’s direction, with the release of the report “We Have No Rights”: Arbitrary Imprisonment and Cruel Treatment of Migrants with Mental Health Issues in Canada in 2015.) I remember hearing from lawyers about the things happening in immigration detention centers and provincial jails and thinking, “That can’t be true – this is Canada.” There was a surreal quality to it: it’s almost like a dirty secret. That kind of work reminds us of the disconnect between the narrative that we have as Canadians and some of the state sanctioned practices that we allow. When you think about impact, and what is the point of all this work – sometimes it’s just to shine the light. That said, we have seen some substantive changes in response to the work that IHRP students have done on these issues.

that.

“Even though we don’t want to pat ourselves on the back too much, tolerance and human rights feel like a part of our national identity, so when things come up against it, it almost creates this discomfort like, “How can these two things coexist?” In some ways, it’s the role of human rights institutions to challenge those mythologies and make people grapple with realities of people who otherwise you wouldn’t even know exist.”

IHRP, we were able to quietly perform our research without the government knowing or gaining too much attention during that stage.

Now I couldn’t show up at a jail without informing the Ministry that I was going to go there, and I would be given an official tour – so it’s harder to be on the ground in the same way as I was able to as IHRP Director.. It also means that people who talk to me in my role as Chief Commissioner feel as though they are putting a lot more on the line. At the IHRP, people talk to us because there is some amount of safety in talking to a university researcher, and it doesn’t feel like you are putting yourself at personal risk; whereas if a whistleblower comes to me as Chief Commissioner there is more on the line, and sometimes that can make it harder to gather those kinds of stories. That’s why it’s important for the OHRC to be actively engaged with on-the-groundcommunity experts, because those are the people who are able to connect with individuals directly.

"The job to me wouldn’t be meaningful if it was only meeting with Ministers, giving speeches, and talking with media. For me the most meaningful thing is just meeting average people."

The flip side is that I’m consistently surprised in a good way that, on some issues, Canadians just get it. For example when I met Adam Capay in the Thunder Bay jail, he had been accused of murder. He spent four and a half years in a windowless basement. Although some Canadians would say, “Well he is accused of murder, he doesn’t deserve better,” the vast majority of Canadian instantly saw why this was so problematic and that it was in contrast to our values as Canadians. Even though we don’t want to pat ourselves on the back too much, tolerance and human rights feel like a part of our national identity, so when things come up against it, it almost creates this discomfort like, “How can these two things coexist?” In some ways, it’s the role of human rights institutions to challenge those mythologies and make people grapple with realities of people who otherwise you wouldn’t even know exist.

RG: Could you describe some of the challenges of working on these issues both as the IHRP Director and as the Chief Commissioner?

RM: The issue with being the Chief Commissioner is that you can’t really fly under the radar. When we were going to do those interviews with immigration detainees through the

RG: In working on these two issues, were there particularly memorable moments or interactions that defined the core of these issues in your mind? Were there interactions that defined your role as an advocate and how has this role changed?

RM: Fundamentally I just care about people at a really personal level. Early in my career, I transitioned from Bay Street to criminal defence, and that was a hugely formative experience for me because I had clients who were often on the margins of society by virtue of being criminalized. My mentors at the time were so amazing because they always encouraged me to listen to what my clients had to say without judgment or an air of being superior to them. That is something that I’ve taken through my whole career, and it’s easy in a role like this to lose that. Ultimately that’s what the work has to be about: keeping your eye on how to bring forward people’s stories in a respectful way that’s going to have an impact, but also that does justice to their experiences. The OHRC is not an expert in people’s experiences of discrimination, the people are the experts in their own experiences. The main question then is: how do we make sure that we are always listening? If you lose that level of interaction, then the institution becomes out of touch.

Those experiences stay with you after it all. After all the writing and advocacy, what it always comes back to is those interactions with people. What I cherish about my time at the IHRP is the experiences of hearing people’s stories and bringing them to light, and that’s still the part that I’m trying to preserve in this role. In some ways in this position, people almost expect you not to get into the weeds or dirty your hands, but I’ve tried to continue engaging with people at a personal level. The job to me wouldn’t be meaningful if it was only meeting with Ministers, giving speeches, and talking with media. For me the most meaningful thing is just meeting average people. We are doing a huge amount of work around Indigenous reconciliation and I am going up to Kenora later this month. Most of our time will be spent listening to Indigenous people talk about their experiences, rather than just going and meeting dignitaries. I want to keep that as a focus in my career and in my life.

RG: Are you able to tell us a bit about any projects you’re working on? What’s next for the Commission?

RM: Currently the priorities for the Commission are reconciliation, criminal justice, poverty, and education.

From an international law perspective, I’m really excited about working on the priorities related to Indigenous rights and poverty because there is a lot the OHRC can learn from international law. International law is so much more developed on economic, social, and cultural rights. We can take a lot from the international system in terms of how can we start talking about poverty for example as a human rights issue.

I’m also really excited about all our work around reconciliation. It’s another of those areas that needs significant light shed on it.

Before the Truth and Reconciliation Commission’s final report, I don’t know that I even had a full appreciation of the history of colonialism and the enduring impacts of it, so I think there is a lot of work for us to do as a country, and I’m excited to be one little part of

RG: Your work is inspirational to so many students and aspiring advocates. What message do you have to those who want to follow in your footsteps? What do you wish you would have known when you were in law school or just starting out your career?

RM: I think what distinguished me from my other friends who were interested in human rights wasn’t my marks or anything in that respect: it was just not giving up. I was always really committed to having a career in this area in a long term way, even when it didn’t materialize in my first year or two of practice, I was always trying to figure out a way to work in the public interest. That tenacity was what ultimately led me to the decisions and opportunities that got me here.

I think it’s much easier if you define your career path like, “I want to have a job where I get to hear people and help them.” There are a lot of jobs out there that allow you to do that. I think it’s about thinking about human rights or social justice in a broader way, because there are so many jobs that are really conventional law jobs – family lawyers, immigration lawyers, criminal lawyers – where you can have tremendous impact on individual people and experiences. If you keep your eye on that, it’s a much more attainable goal. Of course, other opportunities may come out of that, but you have to start small rather than expecting that you’ll have your dream job right away.

I think the worry is that if it doesn’t happen for you right out of school, about 50% of people will think, “I wasn’t destined to do that,” or “ I wasn’t good enough,” but actually the number of opportunities that are open at that stage are pretty small. One thing that is really important to me to share with students, is that students should think about the 5 years post-graduation as still being part of their education, because those years are actually about developing skills. Whether you do that downtown or wherever, it doesn’t matter, as long as you are developing some really important skills. To me, the skills that were the most important were advocacy – written and oral advocacy. And students should remember that they can make a meaningful contribution, even if it is not through their formal employment. A lot of people do amazing work as volunteers, working in community at the grassroots level, or giving back to the law school. There are lots of ways to contribute, and not everyone is destined to become a human rights lawyer, and for some people it’s not even within their means to do that because of student debt and realities of their lives. That’s all okay and there are so many ways to contribute back and change peoples’ lives in a meaningful way.

“I was always really committed to having a career in this area in a long term way, even when it didn’t materialize in my first year or two of practice, I was always trying to figure out a way to work in the public interest. That tenacity was what ultimately led me to the decisions and opportunities that got me here.”

12 | FEBRUARY 28, 2017

DIVERSIONS

ultravires.ca

Famous Case Translations Matching Game

KEVIN SCHOENFELDT (2L)

For this game, we’ve taken quotations from famous legal cases and put them through Google Translate as many times as it took for them to get weird. See if you can match the quotation with the case. Bonus points if you can reverse engineer the original text by putting the translations through Google Translate again.

1.

Mention the great ships of foreign companies and remain an important part of the original structure of some.

A. Reference Re Same Sex Marriage Hint: Living Tree

2.

Ghana, contrast and compare the time 1 of the Constitution of the principle: how to evaluate progress, and method of ka'i'o of this Constitution. We live in a tree.

B. Pierson v Post Hint: Saucy Intruder

3.

Who is my neighbor? The answer will be - there will be people again and again in my work, so I do not forget them, he sent me a government spokesman.

C. Labour Conventions Reference

4.

But I have to keep a bag of dog? Or use, including use of the horse, and the son of Jupiter and the sun, if the night was very bad, so sorry, counsel for the first time, and difficulty participating in the animals rules, the threshold of death and violence, victory of hope?

Watertight Compartments

D. Mustapha v Culligan

Mr. Revelation Foobar Mustafa, ntsws tube, he'i'o face contract tube SIAB Lok Raj Rao Los Angeles El Al to do Los Angeles Liam KAG, Culligan and B were captured spies Pom RRU yoov trying to tshwm * rob Rao. Labor and riders good whenever he tries to figure Customs RRU Mr. Contract Mustafa El Kawm Bible IAV hloov EQHO Kiev npliag laws yoov I also never qheb fwj'a lo'ana Salvador percent LWM RRU yoov try Rao. The new contract is a contract year and has received a "system Kabala" In addition yuav lost family Chronicle's new spy powers agreement with Culligan Tub General study xeem15ďż˝ US AWM Rao Salvador, Kiev tshwm.

E. Donoghue v Stevenson Hint: Duty of Care

Answers: 1) C 2) A 3) E 4) B 5) D

5.

Hint: Flies in Water

ultravires.ca

DIVERSIONS

FEBRUARY 28, 2017

An Administration-Approved Convocation Speech NORM YALLEN (1L)

To start with, I would like to thank the administration for fostering an environment that allows for the exchange of worthwhile ideas. I am proud to be speaking to the graduates of the best law school in Canada. U of T is the best law school because it is the most expensive.

The higher tuition gets, the more prestigious the school becomes. High tuition is a gift that shows everyone how lucky we are to go here.

The facilities at this law school are state of the art. Have you ever licked the f loors of Jackman Hall to see just how clean and well maintained they are? I have, and let me tell you, they taste delicious.

The mental health program at the law school is beyond reproach. No one at the University of Toronto Faculty of Law has ever felt sad or anxious. Well, that is not totally true. One time, two years ago, a student came to school with a frown. He was promptly given an ice cream cone and that frown disappeared.

The academics at this school have provided me with thrills that will last a lifetime. When I wrote my contracts exam in f irst year, I was overcome with excite-

Follies Falls Flat

ment at the innovative and challenging fact pattern. That excitement did not dissipate as I wrote that exact same exam the next two years.

Here is a note from our generous sponsors.

What is your favourite restaurant? Mine is the Goodmans LLP Café. From scintillating salads, to rad wraps, to cool coffee, come get some today. As the old saying goes, “Goodmans LLP Café: food that the administration deems f it to eat.”

I would just like to thank all the people who brought me here today. Osler, Hoskin and especially Harcourt, thank you for the beautiful atrium where I can luxuriate on campus; you are the wind beneath my wings. I would also like to thank McCarthys, Stikemans, Davies, Blakes, and Bennett Jones. I would thank my parents, but I don’t know them anymore.

To conclude, after all the law school has given us, it is time to give back. Consider making a donation, telling a friend, or pacing around laughing hysterically through Toronto’s major intersections. When you are working long hours to pay off debts incurred to go to Canada’s most prestigious institution just remember: it was all a gift. Now pay it back.

NICK PAPAGEORGE (2L)

Tort or No Tort

Law Follies is a minor event. There is no doubt about that. If not for a few hasty emails and Facebook posts, it’s likely nobody would know about it and the audience would just be its writing staff laughing at each other’s jokes.

LILY HASSALL (1L)

Yet, this year, there was a buzz leading up to Follies. All anybody could talk about was the protracted roasting that a much nicer, funnier, and well-liked institution—Ultra Vires, of course—was to be subjected to.

Word got out beforehand. The UV team took the prudent step of getting collectively shitfaced in order to steel itself. There was even talk of a pre-emptive strike against the increasingly fascistic Law Follies cognoscenti: imagine all the righteous indignation of a typical UV opinion piece, but magnified tenfold and way more bellicose.

Good thing we held off. What a waste of newsprint and valuable Internet space that would have been.

The reviews are in, and there is an unquestionable consensus: Follies fell flat.

The much-anticipated roasting of this paper? It never happened. All we got was some scant, passing mention during one of the host’s rambling, incoherent, and unapologetically nationalistic monologues.

Most of the audience didn’t even notice it.

This is unacceptable. The dismissive way it was handed down—by some skinny-ass bitch, no less— borders on a neo-colonial perpetuation of inequitable dispersal of denigration. As such, Ultra Vires is pleased to announce that it is launching a thoroughly probing inquiry into this conspicuously absent assailment.

The full report, expected to run upwards of forty pages, will be released in several installments next Fall. Stay tuned.

There are students in all of my courses who persistently interrupt classroom proceedings to ask questions that begin with “So, let’s say . . .” According to one conservative estimate, these inquiries have absorbed approximately $6000 worth of my class time. TORT OR NO TORT? The administration chose to release grades while class was in session. Due to the ensuing hyperventilating and sobbing, I was unable to discern the professor’s personal anecdote, valued at $1.72 per minute. TORT OR NO TORT? One of the friendly staff at Goodmans LLP Café remembers my name and addresses me by it each time I buy a coffee. His intentions are pure, but this degree of familiarity makes me uncomfortable.

TORT OR NO TORT? Inside the all-gender bathrooms, there is a large red button that purports to activate a lock. It often fails, leading to effusive apologies and deep blushing. I think this is actually a tort. TORT OR NO TORT? A number of 1Ls felt personally victimized by the hosts of Law Follies, causing immense indignation and self-righteousness. TORT OR NO TORT? The administration recently invited all students to an event they called a “Cinq à Sept” but, bizarrely, no alcohol was provided. Ian Sinke recently invited all students to an event called a “Sinke à Sept” and ample Sinke was provided. Both events were extremely disappointing. TORT OR NO TORT?

14 | FEBRUARY 28, 2017

DIVERSIONS

Bora’s Badass Brownies: a Recipe for Law Students RABIYA MANSOOR (2L)

INGREDIENTS Brownie: • 1/2 cup butter • 1 cup white sugar • 2 eggs • 1 teaspoon vanilla extract • 1/3 cup unsweetened cocoa powder • 1/2 cup all-purpose flour • 1/4 teaspoon salt • 1/4 teaspoon baking powder • 1 cup chocolate chips Cream Cheese: • 1 (8 ounce) package cream cheese • 1/3 cup sugar • 1 egg • 1/2 teaspoon vanilla

DIRECTIONS 1. Preheat your oven to 350°F. Grease and flour a 13x9-inch baking pan. Or whatever size you have—like you tell yourself, size doesn’t matter.

2. Melt 1/2 cup butter in a large bowl. Or don’t and find yourself with non-badass brownies.

3. Stir in 1 cup sugar, 2 eggs, and 1 teaspoon vanilla. Beat in 1/3 cup cocoa, 1/2 cup flour, salt, and baking powder. Mix in the 1 cup chocolate chips. Try not to get your tears in the batter—you don’t want them to turn out salty like you! Spread batter into prepared pan.

4. In a separate bowl, beat cream cheese with electric mixer on medium speed until smooth. Beat the cream cheese like law school has beat your soul into submission. Add sugar and mix.

Add vanilla and egg; mix until well-blended.

5. Place cheese mixture in dollops over the whole pan, leaving some brownie showing in between (Don’t take this to mean you should show your true emotions of anguish to your friends or professors).

6. Cut or swirl through batter several times with a knife or fork for a marbled effect. It can be tricky to get a good marble effect so be careful not to over work it, just like you’ve been overworked these past few years.

7. Bake in preheated oven for 30 to 40 minutes. Do not overcook.

Sob as you consume.

ultravires.ca

Screendropping II: Facebooking a Mystery KEVIN SCHOENFELDT (2L)

DIVERSIONS

ultravires.ca

FEBRUARY 28, 2017

The Young Phillips MAUD ROZEE (2L)

*SPONSORED CONTENT: Ultra Vires contributed a personalized profi le to this year’s law school Promise Auction. Professor Jim Phillips was the generous winner. Large parts of this interview were invented by the author.

I arrived for my interview with Professor Phillips wracked with nerves. How would I be able to keep calm while talking with U of T Law’s most beloved professor? How could I simply chat with the man who had held me spellbound every Tuesday and Thursday morning in 1L Property? Was I worthy of interviewing this living law legend?

Professor Phillips, looking casual and elegant in dark athletic-wear, invited me in. His warm smile and melodious accent instantly put me at ease. We sat in his office, surrounded by the history books and classic literature that he reads in his spare time. His bicycle stood nearby, a subtle reminder of his impressive sportsmanship.

Born in 1954, Jim Phillips grew up in a sleepy farming village in southern England. When asked when it became clear that he was way smarter than everyone around him, he shyly chuckled and declined to answer. But he did confi rm that his famous nonconformist spirit fi rst manifested at the tender age of eight, when he was kicked out of Boy Scouts for “not taking it seriously enough.” As the legend goes, young Jim stepped in to defend a new Scout who was being bullied for not having enough Scout patches on his Scout uniform. Young Jim snipped each of his Scout badges in half to share with the boy. His troop leader pulled him aside, stared into young Jim’s eyes and said, “Phillips, you’ll never amount to anything.” Jim saluted him, and then turned his back on the troop forever.

After that incident, Jim began to yearn for broader horizons. At age eleven, he wrote an exam that would decide whether he would attend a prestigious grammar school in a nearby village where students learned Latin or Greek, or a trade school where students learned to be

coal miners. He never learned his score on that exam. It is said that it was lost after the exam marker was rendered insane by a glimpse of the depth of Phillips’s intellect.

graduating classes approximately every second year (it would be every year, but he is complicit in a conspiracy to rig the results so that other professors don’t get too jealous).

Needless to say, he passed. He left the tworoom schoolhouse where he had learned the essentials and started commuting by train to grammar school. Phillips would not confi rm whether he wore an adorable sailor suit uniform, but it is safe to assume that he did.

Each year, Professor Phillips invites the lucky students in his class over for dinner at the home he shares with his wife Christine and their beagle Marla. Jim met Christine at his twenty-year reunion at Dalhousie: it was love at fi rst sight, and the two were a long-distance couple for years before he convinced her to move to Toronto.

After an illustrious career there, Phillips was accepted into the University of Edinburgh. He was a fi rst-generation student and took to it like a fi sh to water, earning a Ph.D. in History in record time. Phillips was an easy-going jock who aced every class and was passionate about social justice. He played back-row forward on the University’s rugby team. Archival records reveal that literally every other student at the University was in love with him.

In the span of a few years, Jim Phillips had risen from small-town obscurity to academic and social success in the big city. But in 1977, he decided to throw it all away. Life in the United Kingdom had never suited him. He chafed under the restrictive class system and “wasn’t a big fan of Margaret Thatcher.” He bought a ticket on the next plane to Halifax, and sailed through his JD at Dalhousie. He graduated with no debt, which is a sign either of his budgeting brilliance or the changing model for fi nancing legal education (I leave this to the reader’s interpretation).

The rest, of course, is history.

Current students will know that Professor Phillips is a hero to their kind, not least for his enthusiastic participation in Follies and Coffee Houses. This is a long-standing trend. He also used to play on the law school’s intramural soccer team, hanging up his cleats after winning the championship on an all-star team that included Abraham Drassinower. Phillips is selected to give the “Hail and Farewell” address to

Despite his accomplishments, Jim is almost debilitatingly modest. When asked to give some advice to the rest of the law school faculty, he demurred. “Oh, I couldn’t,” he said, a twinkle in his eyes. Later, he adds with a laugh, “They should all be more like Martha Schaffer.” The two have a close relationship that goes back to the days when they both clerked at the Supreme Court.

“Jim was an exemplary clerk,” Professor Schaffer recalls. “He was a little bit older and we all looked up to him.” Professor Schaffer also looks up to Phillips literally. “She loves it when I make jokes about how short she is,” Phillips told me.

“I didn’t realize he was balding for months, until I saw him sitting down,” Schaffer confi rmed.

Charmingly, even this Titan of Teaching isn’t immune from nervousness. “Every year, I worry about how my class will go,” he confided. “Just because something worked last year doesn’t mean it will again!” Each of the twenty-thousand former students of Professor Phillips who I interviewed for this piece confi rmed that he has nothing worry about, but it’s sweet that he cares so much.

“I’m lucky to have this job, I really am,” Phillips generously told me.

Professor Phillips, we all feel the same.

16 | FEBRUARY 28, 2017

DIVERSIONS

From the Vault, February 2000 Issue: Follies Writer Achieves Every Law Student’s Dream of Being Discovered and Not Actually Having to Practice Law JOHN D. FAKEMAN (17L) [ORIGINAL] & KEVIN SCHOENFELDT (2L) [UPDATE]

Susan Fielder woke up last Thursday morning thinking one thing: “I hope today isn’t a total disaster.” Later that night, she would go to bed having signed a seven-f igure development deal with Miramax.

What happened in between? Law Follies, of course. Or, as it was called this year, Law Wars Episode One: T he Factum Menace.

“I fought hard for that title,” Fielder said. “Everyone else wanted to go with Hey Now, You’re a Law Star but I just don’t think a great band like Smash Mouth should have their name sullied by the pun treatment. You might say they don’t deserve to be PUNished like that. Get it?” It’s that kind of wit that got Fielder noticed by a f ilm executive in the audience.

In addition to the show’s title, Fielder also wrote a number of sketches in the show. In one, “The Sixth Law Club,” a lawyer discovers that his legal partner was himself the whole time and that he’s actually a solo practitioner. Then, through the help of a young paralegal, he also f inds out he’s been dead the whole time. This of course was a brilliant parody of two f ilms, Fight Club and T he Sixth Sense.

Fielder didn’t only do f ilm parodies: she also showed of f her Weird A l-esque ability to write parody song lyrics, with audience favourites like “Law Street’s Back” and “Bills Bills Bills.” The latter was performed by the Admissions Committee, who sang “Can you pay our bills, can you pay

ultravires.ca our tuition bills, can you pay our textbook bills, if you can then maybe we can chill.”

This showed of f Fielder’s ability to not only be funny, but topical. Dean Ron Daniels was seen in the audience scowling throughout the entire song.

It’s clear that Fielder is very talented, but she is also fortunate that a Miramax executive happened to be the mother of a fellow Follies performer. Immediately after the show, she demanded to know who was behind the skits described above, and others like “The Farting Judge” and “Wild Wild Westlaw.”

So how does Fielder feel after all this?

“Honestly, I’m just happy that I don’t have to be a lawyer anymore,” she told me. “I’ve been dreading it ever since I started law school. I’m so relieved I’m getting out.”

We should all be so lucky, Susan, we should all be so lucky.

Update: In the years following this article, Fielder wrote four screenplays. One of these, Courtroom Drama Movie, a lesserknown Friedberg and Seltzer parody f ilm, was eventually released direct-to-video and became a cult favourite of law students across the world. Then, after working as a script doctor for a number of years, Fielder wrote a bestselling autobiography: Getting to ‘Sure, Why Not?’: How to Excel from Law School to Hollywood.