MEDIA RELEASE

For immediate release: Monday, March 18, 2013 LAW STUDENTS ACROSS CANADA RALLY AGAINST TRINITY WESTERN LAW SCHOOL PROPOSAL Today, law students across the country have rallied together to voice their opposition to Trinity Western Universitys (TWU) proposed law school. TWU submitted a proposal for accreditation to the Federation of Law Societies of Canada in June 2012. More than one thousand law students from eight of Canadas law schools submitted letters to the Federation of Canadian Law Societies stating that TWUs policies are discriminatory towards lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer (LGBTQ) individuals. In their letters, the students have highlighted that TWU forces students to sign a community covenant agreement requiring the student to abstain from sexual intimacy that violates the sacredness of marriage between a man and a woman. Students who do not comply with the covenant agreement may be removed from the university without readmission. The signatories to the letters claim that the policy is blatantly discriminatory towards LGBTQ students. The law students also question whether TWU is an appropriate venue for legal education because these discriminatory policies do not propagate Canadian legal values, including those reflected in the Charter of Rights and Freedoms or provincial human rights legislation. The signatories express that as future lawyers and officers of the court, they are committed to equality and promoting the values of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms within their own practices. They believe that their colleagues should be exposed to a learning environment that fosters the same. The below contacts are community and LGBTQ leaders at each law school who led the letter-writing campaigns. A ZIP file of the letters can be downloaded at: http://bit.ly/109nLGb -30Contacts University of Victoria Julie DeWolf LSS Vice-President Internal, University of Victoria julie.s.dewolf@gmail.com University of Saskatchewan Jill Bishop GSA President, University of Saskatchewan jill.e.bishop@gmail.com 778-350-1390 -andMarty Wales LSA President, University of Saskatchewan marty.wales@usask.ca University of British Columbia Dustin Klaudt, Past OUTlaws Co-Chair, University of British Columbia dustin.klaudt@gmail.com 604-837-5994 University of Ottawa uOttawa OUTLaw Executive uottawaoutlaw@gmail.com Osgoode Hall Law School, York University Douglas Judson Co-Chair, Osgoode OUTlaws dwjudson@gmail.com 613-720-3845 Schulich School of Law, Dalhousie University Chelsey Roy Co-Chair, Dal OUTlaws chelseyroy@gmail.com University of Alberta Christopher Ghesquiere OUTLaw Representative, University of Alberta clg7@ualberta.ca 780-691-4584 Universit du Qubec Montral Emilie Chare Collectif Fminisme et Droit, Universit du Qubec Montral emilie.chare@gmail.com