Supreme Court Rejects Trinity Western University’s Law School

These articles and links are from the BC Humanist Association’s website.

So let’s dig into the background first.

This case centred on whether the Law Society of BC has the authority to refuse to approve a proposed law school at Trinity Western University. TWU is an evangelical private school which requires all of its students to sign a Community Covenant. That documents requires students to abstain – both on and off of campus – from sexual relations outside of a heterosexual marriage. This provision effectively bars LGBTQ students from accessing these potential law seats. The covenant also requires students to uphold the sanctity of life, which discriminates against women’s reproductive freedoms.

The Law Society had initially approved the law school but it reversed that decision following a referendum of its members, who are practicing lawyers across the province. TWU challenged that rejection at the BC Supreme Court and won on administrative grounds in December. Essentially, the Court ruled that the Law Society messed up how it made the decision but the ruling didn’t really go into the human rights issues at play.

Read more:

TWU v LSBC – BC Humanists at the BC Court of Appeal

A win for equality – Supreme Court rejects TWU law school

Ian Bushfield’s (Executive Director, BC Humanist Association) email of June 15th, 2018 announcing the Supreme Court of Canada’s decision:

A win for equality – SCC rejects TWU law school