In the last week of February, the Black Law Students’ Association of Canada (BLSAC) held their yearly conference, entitled “The Ripple Effect of One Voice,” in Windsor.
“[The] conference is always held during Black History Month,” said Christopher Uwagboe, president and national executive of the Association. “It allowed us to look back on the struggles faced by blacks that came before us and the efforts they made to make it possible for us to have this association.”
BLSAC is a not-for-profit national organization which strives to assist all high school and undergraduates who are members of a minority group in pursuing a law career. The speakers at the conference included both black law professors and lawyers, who covered practical aspects of law and gave motivational talks encouraging youth to persevere and pursue their dreams of making the field more inclusive.
According to Owagboe, among BLSAC’s primary goals is the improvement of access to a law education for black students. They also wish to initiate change in the legal system, making it more responsive to the needs of the black community. Uwagboe hinted that higher representation of blacks in the legal profession is linked to making the justice system more accountable to blacks.
“I think that the need for more black students in the profession is clear. The law impacts every facet of society and the number of black lawyers in the profession is not proportionate to the number of blacks in the communities that the law governs,” he said.
“A lack of black lawyers in the profession only serves to perpetuate an infrastructure of inequality. By making real efforts towards establishing a balance of power in the profession we can begin to use the law as an instrument of change for issues that are most salient to the black community, such as racial profiling.”
Uwagboe said that the association’s 15th anniversary, which was celebrated during the conference, was a tribute to those who came before the present generation in the field, and that the conference allowed BLSAC to accomplish the goals they set and to create more for the future.
