A proposal by Trinity Western University (TWU) to open Canada’s first religious law school has drawn ire from the Canadian Council of Law Deans (CCLD).
TWU said it submitted a proposal for a law school to the Federation of Law Societies of Canada (FLSC) on June 18, 2012. They said that, if the proposal goes ahead, they hope to welcome their first class of law students in 2015.
The proposal has disgruntled the CCLD because of its “community covenant,” which every student and faculty member must sign.
The covenant sets out a code of conduct that includes “cultivating Christian virtues,” such as love, patience, compassion, and justice. It also lists several conditions, including that students refrain from gossiping, lying, drinking alcohol, and smoking cigarettes on campus.
TWU, a private Christian university in Langley, B.C. is a self-proclaimed “place . . . with a common vision – to transform lives through Christ-centred higher education.”
The covenant requires students and faculty to abstain from engaging in homosexual activity, since “sexual intimacy is reserved for marriage between one man and one woman.”
The CCLD raised concerns that the covenant’s principles are discriminatory of homosexuals. Following the university’s application, it sent a letter to the FLSC criticizing the proposal.
“Discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation is unlawful in Canada and fundamentally at odds with the core values of all Canadian law schools,” CCLD president Bill Flanagan wrote.
The letter specifically urges the FLSC “to consider this covenant and its intentionally discriminatory impact on gay, lesbian and bi-sexual students” as well as to “investigate whether TWU’s covenant is inconsistent with federal or provincial law.”
TWU president Jonathan Raymond responded that students and faculty make a decision to affiliate themselves with the university.
“I don’t think we’re discriminatory if we’re very upfront about who we are, and what the framework is. It’s really a voluntary choice for a person to say ‘Yes, I can study within those boundaries or framework,'” Raymond told the BBC.
Carleton law professor and chair of the legal studies department George Rigakos said he agreed with the CCLD. TWU’s discriminatory policy runs up against the aim of law schools, training students to uphold the principles of social justice, he said.
Regardless of their private status, TWU’s stance “runs contrary to the spirit and recent application of the charter with respect to homosexuality and equality rights,” Rigakos said.
The ball is in the now in the CCLD’s court, Rigakos said.
“As an organizing body devoted to the improved training and qualifications of future lawyers it would be antithetical for the Council of Canadian Law Deans to support membership from a university that is exclusionary or discriminatory” he explains.
This isn’t the first time TWU’s clauses condemning homosexual behaviour have come under fire.
The British Columbia Teachers’ Federation (BCTF) took the university to court back in 2001, claiming its covenant violated students’ and faculty’s equality rights under the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms.
The case went all the way to the Supreme Court of Canada, which ruled in favour of the university and found that the BCTF “erroneously concluded that equality of rights on the basis of sexual orientation trump freedom of religion and association. They do not.”
The FLSC will consult with the legal community, but is entitled to make an independent decision regarding TWU’s application for a law school.
