Latest news with #lawSchool
Reuters
13-05-2025
- Politics
- Reuters
Northwestern University must face Palestinian law grad's discrimination suit
May 13 (Reuters) - A former Northwestern law student can proceed with a discrimination lawsuit that claims the school failed to protect her from being harassed over her pro-Palestine activism, a federal judge ruled on Tuesday. Plaintiff Yasmeen Elagha in November sued Northwestern and several law school officials, including law dean Hari Osofsky, alleging she was discriminated against and subjected to a hostile educational environment. Elagha, who is a Palestinian Muslim, said university officials failed to intervene after fellow students falsely claimed she attacked them during a campus protest. She also alleged that students released her personal information online and got her job offer at a major law firm rescinded. U.S. District Judge Charles Kocoras in Chicago dismissed Elagha's claim of a hostile educational environment, but allowed her claim of intentional discrimination to proceed after Northwestern filed a motion to dismiss the case. Other universities are also facing lawsuits alleging discrimination against pro-Palestinian students, as campus tensions have escalated over the war in Gaza, including at the University of California at Los Angeles and Columbia University. Elagha's allegations that she made multiple harassment complaints, which the defendants failed to respond, permitted "an inference of intentional discrimination," Kocoras wrote in his opinion, opens new tab. A Northwestern University spokesperson did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Tuesday. Attorney Ahmad Zaher, who is representing Elagha, said he and his client are "confident in the strength of the remaining issues." Elagha, who graduated from Northwestern Law in May 2024, claimed that she and other students asked the university to intervene after they were harassed and threatened during a pro-Palestine campus protest in November 2023 but that the university took no action. She asked the university in 2022 to issue a no-contact directive against another student who had targeted her but was denied, she claimed. Law firm DLA Piper rescinded her job offer after a fellow law student falsely claimed Elagha assaulted her during a protest, according to the suit. Subsequent internal university review concluded that no assault took place, according to the lawsuit. When the Illinois Board of Law Admissions requested additional information about the protest incident, Northwestern law officials took at least two weeks to issue a letter saying Elagha had been cleared of wrongdoing, according to her suit. Read more: US House drops probe for data from university over pro-Palestinian protestor cases Northwestern law school sued for discrimination against white men in faculty hiring
CBC
13-05-2025
- Politics
- CBC
New Heritage Minute celebrates Bora Laskin, namesake of Thunder Bay, Ont., law school
Michel Beaulieu says Historica Canada's new Heritage Minute featuring Bora Laskin is "long overdue." Born in 1912 in Fort William — now Thunder Bay, Ont., — Laskin is known for overcoming antisemitism to become the first Jewish Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of Canada. "He became an academic and a leading scholar in many of the types of issues that would resonate today, and definitely the types of focus that became our law school," said Beaulieu, associate vice-provost of academic and professor of history at Lakehead University. The namesake of Lakehead's Bora Laskin Faculty of Law is known for his forward-thinking approach to law and focus on human rights. Appointed to the Supreme Court by former Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau, his work informed much of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, said Beaulieu. "It's always nice when you see an important element of our region's past receiving national attention," Beaulieu said. The law school first opened in 2013 and was renamed after Laskin the following year. "It was a natural choice to approach the [Laskin] family for a law school that was established to be innovative, to have a focus that dealt with Indigenous law, resource law, small practice, rural, the types of things and innovation that Laskin himself was known for," Beaulieu said. "All of these things do resonate in our law school, the nature of how we approach law, the program, the innovation that our faculty bring to it, but also the nature of the students we have in our program." Expert in human rights After graduating from the Fort William Collegiate and Technical Institute, Laskin was accepted into the second year of the honour law undergraduate program at the University of Toronto when he was only 17. He received his BA and MA from there before going on to obtain his law degree from Osgoode Hall and a graduate degree in law from Harvard University. But it wasn't easy. Laskin's family first arrived in Fort William as Russian Jewish immigrants who had faced significant persecution back home. He contended with similar antisemitic attitudes when trying to find a job in Toronto. Eventually, he secured teaching positions at both of his alma maters in Toronto before being appointed to the Ontario Court of Appeal and later the Supreme Court of Canada. "He is one of the most in-exhaustingly compelling figures of Canadian law," said Kerry Rittich, professor of law, women and gender studies and public policy and governance at the University of Toronto, in a news release issued Wednesday. In the Supreme Court, "what he stood out wasn't just the majority decisions, it was also the dissenting comments," Beaulieu said. For example, when the court upheld that Indigenous women would lose their Indian status if they married non-Indigenous men, "Laskin argued very forcefully that this compounded racial discrimination, gender discrimination, and was a violation of basic tenets of human rights — and this really stood out at the time." Laskin was chancellor of Lakehead University from 1971 to 1980. Before becoming the law school's namesake, Lakehead's Faculty of Education Building was named after him. He died in 1984 at age 71. His family members also overcame adversity to make a big impact. His brother Saul Laskin was the first mayor of Thunder Bay when Fort William and Port Arthur were amalgamated in 1970. Now, as students come to Thunder Bay to obtain their law degrees, Beaulieu said it's important for them to remember the contributions Bora Laskin made as they look to establish their own legal careers. "I think it's a point of pride," he said, "going to a law school that is carrying on in the beliefs and the opinions and the approach of probably, some would argue, one of the foremost experts this country has ever had in terms of human rights."
