Selwyn Pieters taking on the system

15 posts / 0 new

Mon, 2010-12-06 23:42

RevolutionPlease RevolutionPlease's picture

http://www.thestar.com/news/article/902582--lawyer-wins-racial-discrimination-case?bn=1

Good for Selwyn Pieters on following through with his complaint. All resistance is useful.

Quote:

Ironically, Pieters and his colleagues - lawyer Brian Noble and law student Paul Waldron - were there to deal with a case of racial profiling before the tribunal.

The men were waiting in the lounge when Melissa Firth, a librarian and administrator with the Peel Law Association, approached and "demanded" identification to determine if they were paralegals, who are not allowed in the lawyers' lounge.

No one else in the lounge at the time was questioned.

Issues Pages:

Anti-Racism

Mon, 2010-12-06 23:48

Unionist

Great story - lots of ironies - thanks, RP.

Tue, 2010-12-07 00:06

RevolutionPlease RevolutionPlease's picture

Indeed, Unionist. I found this much more troubling.

Quote:

Peel Law Association president Frances Wood said the decision came as a surprise to the group's members.

"The Peel Law Association does not accept some of the findings that were made and we will be considering some of the legal remedies when we next meet," she said.

Wood said the association's membership and board are made up of "members from every race, every colour, every religion."

I'd laugh if it wasn't so sad...

Tue, 2010-12-07 00:32

Wilf Day

Unionist wrote:
Great story - lots of ironies - thanks, RP.

And I certainly would not defend the law librarian.

It might be of interest, however, that judges in another suburban courthouse, Newmarket, are having troubles telling visiting Toronto lawyers from paralegals; it's a bit of a zoo there. As a result, they make lawyers wear their gowns when other centres would not require this, just so they can tell who is a lawyer. I expect Brampton is a bit of a zoo too, which might be an underlying factor. Certainly one normally expects far better from a law librarian.

Tue, 2010-12-07 00:49

RevolutionPlease RevolutionPlease's picture

Shouldn't a court already know who is qualified to present their case? Doesn't the LSUC take care of this? Why is there misunderstanding by the judiciary? Perhaps, the blame should go to the LSUC? How does this point Wilf, have anything to do with the fact that no one else was questioned from my OP?

Wilf, your post is unclear. Almost sounds like you're absolving the problem here.

Tue, 2010-12-07 08:04

Maysie

I read this story on my FB feed yesterday.

Nice result.

What Wood said in Revolution Please's quote above is just pathetic. Aren't lawyers supposed to have a way with words? And wasn't the "We are NOT racist, we AREN'T!" excuse, accompanied by a foot-stomp, outlawed in the 70s?

This is what systemic racism looks like, it's not about the individual legal secretary.

Wilf, please clarify what you mean by other jurisdictions having difficulty telling visiting lawyers apart from paralegals. Is this connected to the racial identities of the visiting lawyers and paralegals? Let's try to stay on topic.

And Revolution Please, just dial it back a bit and let Wilf have a chance to expand on what he meant. Thanks.

Tue, 2010-12-07 10:47

Dodger718

Maysie wrote:

Wilf, please clarify what you mean by other jurisdictions having difficulty telling visiting lawyers apart from paralegals. Is this connected to the racial identities of the visiting lawyers and paralegals? Let's try to stay on topic.

Not to speak for Wilf, but I simply interpreted it to mean that if people aren't in some sort of specific clothing (like a lawyer's robe), it's pretty hard to tell what they do for a living. I have a big client meeting today so I'm wearing a suit (pretty rare in my job) so if I were standing next to a lawyer, you wouldn't necessarily be able to tell who is a lawyer and who isn't.

Tue, 2010-12-07 11:05

Maysie

Hi Dodger, it may mean that.

However, if you read the link, Pieters and 2 other Black men were singled out in a room full of (presumably white) lawyers dressed exactly as they were dressed. That incident was blatant racism, done by an individual, supported by the institution. Why we know about it is because these guys didn't shut up and take it, they fought back and won, and made the news.

This thread is about race and racism, individual and systemic.

If Wilf's example is about generic non-racialized "folks" who aren't distinguishable by their position/job/role and get asked things like "Are you a lawyer?" and "Are you a paralegal?" as your example seems to be Dodger, then such an example unfortunately doesn't belong in this thread. Such talk, only 3 posts into a thread about systemic racism, can be seen as minimizing racism, as Revolution Please has said above.

Tue, 2010-12-07 11:25

Unionist

Before the speculation gets any more rampant, why not [url=http://www.canlii.org/en/on/onhrt/doc/2010/2010hrto2411/2010hrto2411.htm... the full decision[/url] and find out what really happened?

Among other reasons for interrogating the three Black men (called "the applicants") and no one else, the librarian (the "personal respondent") claimed that she knew everyone else in the lounge was a lawyer. But the Tribunal found that to be false:

Quote:

[89] It is significant, in my view, that the personal respondent did provide an explanation at the time she was questioning the applicants for her actions. She stated that she knew everyone else in the lounge to be lawyers. This claim is clearly not true given that Ms. McFadden was not a lawyer and Ms. Reesor, although a lawyer, had never been in the lounge before.

[90] I have considered whether the personal respondent may have simply relied on this false statement in the heat of the moment, not knowing what to say when challenged by the applicants to explain her decision to question them. But even if I accept that the applicant relied on this comment in the heat of the moment, it is nonetheless revealing that the personal respondent could not generate a credible non- discriminatory reason for why she was questioning the applicants, for example that she had to resolve the issue of who re-arranged the furniture or that she was in the process of questioning everyone in the lounge she did not know and was beginning with the applicants. The lack of a persuasive non-discriminatory reason for the questioning of the applicants provided either at the time of the incident or at the hearing leads me to conclude that the personal respondent’s decision to question the applicants was indeed tainted by considerations of their race and colour.

There's lots more. It's pretty crystal clear.

The more "subtle" racial profiling is, the more dangerous and insidious and hard to eradicate it is. No one could produce a staff memo saying, "Challenge all persons of colour." That memo actually exists - but it's not usually written down. It's hardwired into the non-racialized sections of society by education, culture, religion, "nurturing", and the psychological consequences of political, economic, and social marginalization. It's so insidious that, as in the case of the librarian, it makes up its own excuses as it goes along.

Wed, 2010-12-08 00:02

#10

Wilf Day

Unionist wrote:
Before the speculation gets any more rampant, why not [url=http://www.canlii.org/en/on/onhrt/doc/2010/2010hrto2411/2010hrto2411.htm... the full decision[/url] and find out what really happened?

Thanks. Much more useful than anything I could add.

Bonnie Racz, a member of the Law Association executive, on the morning of May 16 noticed a person in the women's robing room she did not recognize and thought might not be a lawyer. She contacted Melissa Firth, the Librarian/Administrator, to ask her to confirm whether this woman was admissible to the facilities. Nothing unusual so far. They obviously have a major problem with other people using their lounge, library and robing rooms. For example, Elizabeth McFadden, an employee of the Peel Regional Police, was not a lawyer. When it was suggested by Mr. Pieters that all of those involved in the YCJA application go to the lounge during a break in their proceedings she said she didn't believe she should go in because of the signage saying it was a lawyers' lounge. She testified that Mr. Pieters and others said they thought it would be OK.

Quote:
the issue for me is why, on this particular occasion, the personal respondent stopped at all to question the applicants. The evidence was that the personal respondent was on her way with Ms. Racz to speak to a person in the robing room whom Ms. Racz did not recognize and was concerned enough to come and ask the personal respondent to confirm her identification. The personal respondent never did provide an explanation for why she chose to stop under these specific circumstances to question the applicants and Mr. Waldron. . . The lack of a persuasive non-discriminatory reason for the questioning of the applicants provided either at the time of the incident or at the hearing leads me to conclude that the personal respondent's decision to question the applicants was indeed tainted by considerations of their race and colour.

Maysie wrote:
Wilf, please clarify what you mean by other jurisdictions having difficulty telling visiting lawyers apart from paralegals. Is this connected to the racial identities of the visiting lawyers and paralegals? Let's try to stay on topic.

Not connected. I was just thinking about the context, which I have stated more correctly above.

Thu, 2012-02-16 22:01

#11

Sineed

Ruling in lawyer's claim of racial profiling overturned

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/national/toronto/ruling-in-lawyers-c...

Quote:
Mr. Pieters and Mr. Noble, who were accompanied by a black law student, alleged that Ms. Firth asked them for identification only because they were black.

But in a Divisional Court ruling issued Feb. 13, a three-judge panel led by Madam Justice Sandra Chapnik overturned the Human Rights Tribunal’s ruling and ordered Mr. Pieters and Mr. Noble to pay $20,000 in court costs.

It was wrong to conclude that there was clear evidence of discrimination in this case, the Divisional Court said about the decision by Eric Whist, vice-chair of the Human Rights Tribunal of Ontario.

The ruling notes that the librarian had asked hundreds of other people over the years for ID in the lounge, including white lawyers. And the ruling says there was evidence, ignored by the tribunal, of an alternative reason Ms. Firth asked the three men for ID and not anyone else: They were closest to the door when she came in.

Wed, 2012-02-22 15:10

#12

M. Spector M. Spector's picture

[url=http://www.canlii.org/en/on/onscdc/doc/2012/2012onsc1048/2012onsc1048.ht... of the Divisional Court decision[/url]

One of the three judges hearing the appeal was appointed to the Ontario Court of Appeal shortly after the hearing. I don't know how significant that is.

Wed, 2012-02-22 21:52

#13

Sineed

Here's what seems to be at the heart of overturning this ruling:

Quote:
The Code establishes that the complainant in a human rights complaint bears the burden of proving a prima facie case of discrimination....By improperly reversing the burden of proof, the Tribunal placed her in the difficult position of trying to prove a negative, namely, that her conduct in the performance of her routine duties was not motivated by race and colour.

Thu, 2012-02-23 00:14

#14

RevolutionPlease RevolutionPlease's picture

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rY0WxgSXdEE&ob=av3e

Thu, 2013-06-13 16:50

#15

Unionist

Guess what:

Court reinstates human rights ruling that black lawyers were racially profiled when asked for ID

Quote:
The upper court reinstated the $2,000 tribunal award to the trio. It also awarded them $30,000 in costs.