(Event postponed to a later date) The Walter S. Owen Lecture

(Event postponed to a later date) Access to Post-secondary Education in Canada for Students with Disabilities 

Access to post-secondary education in Canada can be pursued by way of a number of domestic instruments, including statutory human rights legislation, constitutional law, and accessibility legislation. These enactments are further bolstered by Article 24 of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD) which provides an explicit right to education for persons with disabilities. Statutory human rights legislation (or anti-discrimination law) plays the most extensive role in controlling the discretionary power that colleges and universities exercise with respect to the admission of prospective students and the reasonable accommodation of matriculated students with disabilities. This lecture presents the findings of a review of decisions by human rights tribunals in Canada over the 7-year period of 2014–2021. With respect to both admissions cases and in-program reasonable accommodations cases, it identifies the main types of barriers experienced by persons with disabilities. It ultimately raises concerns about ensuring the right to tertiary education for persons with disabilities in Canada.

*This event is eligible for 1 hour of Law Society of British Columbia CPD credit.

Speaker

Laverne Jacobs

Laverne Jacobs is a full Professor at the University of Windsor, Faculty of Law. She is also an elected expert member of the United Nations Committee on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities. She is the first Canadian to sit on this treaty body

A former Associate Dean (Research & Graduate Studies). Professor Jacobs teaches, researches and writes in the areas of persons with disabilities and the law, administrative law, administrative justice and human rights. 

Professor Jacobs completed a study on Access to Post-Secondary Education in Canada for Students with Disabilities and was the general editor of a special issue on Inclusive Post-Secondary Education for Persons with Disabilities published in the International Journal of Discrimination and the Law in 2023. She is the lead author and general editor of the first textbook in Canada on law and disability, which was published in 2021. She has published and presented widely in her fields, both in Canada and internationally. 

Professor Jacobs founded and directs The Law, Disability & Social Change Project, a research centre at Windsor Law that works to foster and develop inclusive communities. She is also Co-Director of the Disability Rights Working Group at Berkeley Law’s Center for Comparative Equality & Anti-Discrimination Law.  

Dr. Jacobs is the recipient of several awards for her research, scholarship and community engagement. These include the Canadian Bar Association Touchstone Award, the Canadian Association of Law Teachers (CALT) Academic Excellence Award, the Research Excellence Award (Established Researcher Category, University of Windsor), and the DisAbled Women’s Network (DAWN) Hummingbird Award.

The Walter S. Owen Lecture

The Walter S. Owen Chair in Law, the first endowed chair at the law school, was established in honour of The Hon. Walter S. Owen, O.C., Q.C., LL.D., K. St., one of Vancouver's most prominent lawyers, businessmen and philanthropists. Among his many services to the legal profession and the public, he was President of the Canadian Bar Association (1958-59), Treasurer of the Law Society of British Columbia (1964-65), and Lieutenant Governor of British Columbia (1973-78). He died in 1980, and the campaign to fund the Walter S. Owen Chair, which was already underway at that time, culminated in the formal establishment of the Chair in 1982.

The Walter S. Owen Lecture is a public expression by the Visiting Professor who holds the Chair, of the Faculty's wish to commemorate Mr. Owen, and to thank those whose contributions enabled the Chair to be endowed.

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