U of T law school hopeful Billeh Hamid has suffered the dreaded “lost year.”
“My personal belongings were illegally thrown out by a landlord,” he explained. “I subsequently took him to court and received compensation.”
His academic performance that year took a serious hit because of the incident. (“Ironically, that incident piqued my interest in law,” he recalled). Now a representative on Governing Council’s Academic Board, Hamid wants the Faculty of Law to change its admission policies to include a “special circumstances” category for underrepresented groups.
“Pretty much every law school in Ontario does that, but U of T doesn’t,” the fourth-year UTM student said. “It’s something we want U of T to get in line with, for equity reasons.”
Law faculties at different Canadian schools usually provide applicants with lists of factors they view as relevant to a student’s application. U of T’s faculty addresses “adverse socio-economic circumstances” and “barriers faced by cultural (including racial or ethnic) minorities” in its admissions policy.
By contrast, York’s law school gives a much more extensive list, including “family size,” “whether you attended school in a rural or urban setting,” and “whether you were required by economic circumstances to work substantial hours while attending school.”
Queen’s law school has a separate admissions category for applicants it considers disadvantaged. Applicants in this category must be members of a group that has historically suffered “stereotyping based on race, religion, sexual orientation.” Queen’s will also take into account “personal illness or illness of a family member,” “having to work to support oneself” or “barriers due to place of birth, linguistic, cultural or gender differences.”
Bonnie Goldberg, dean of students at Law, said that the faculty has “a very holistic approach to the admissions process.” According to their admissions policy, “the [law] faculty seeks a diverse student body.” Since 1995, the proportion of visible minority students in the program has risen from 21 to 29 per cent. However, over the past five years, no more than 4.4 per cent of students in the faculty identified as black. Currently, 7.5 per cent of students in the faculty are Aboriginal, which the faculty says is far higher than the national average.
But along with those provisions for recruiting visible minorities, Hamid wants Law to add a category for students who work to put themselves through school, or those whose academic performance falters one year for personal or family reasons.
Goldberg responded that U of T’s admissions process only takes into account an applicant’s best three out of four years. A personal statement component, she said, “enables people to tell us their story. We are very well attuned to the nuances of everyone’s life.”
Financial situation also has a bearing on admissions to the law school. The proportion of aid applicants from families with incomes over $90,000 a year has increased from 30 per cent to 37 per cent between 1999/00 and 2004/05, according to a report released this month by the vice-provost’s office. The percentage of aid applicants with parental incomes under $60,000 has held steady around 17 per cent.
Goldberg said she “won’t say that we should have different standards, because we are a highly-regarded, highly-respected law school with a very rigorous program,” she added.
Renee Smith, president of U of T’s Black Law Students Association, supports Hamid’s initiative, with some ambivalence. “At law school, there’s value to it,” she said of Hamid’s proposal. “But it isn’t absolutely necessary.”
She argued that diversity in overall background, not just race or economic status, should be the goal law school recruitment. Students should come from different backgrounds, she says, because the people they will serve come from diverse backgrounds as well.
“It’s more than the colour of the skin,” she said. “You need people with different experience.”
Hamid plans to make his case in a meeting with law dean Mayo Moran later this month.
