In February, McGill’s Social Equity and Diversity Education Office (SEDE) organized a university-wide celebration of Black History Month under the theme “Resistance.” Over at the Faculty, the Labour Law and Development Research Laboratory (LLDRL) fostered positive synergies with this initiative by leading four impactful events. “My goal was quite resolutely to bring a professorial touch to the important initiatives undertaken by SEDE,” said Professor Adelle Blackett, director of the LLDRL and holder of the Canada Research Chair in Transnational Labour Law and Development, which sponsored the events.
This included hosting Black Professors Speak: McGill Renaissance? the first contemporary public panel of Black professors at McGill. An occasion to celebrate the work, dedication, and mentorship of the professors, this roundtable was also an opportunity to remember the first Black professor at McGill, Dr. Ernest Melville Duporte, and honour emeritus Professor Glyne Piggott.
Professor Rebecca Zietlow was up next, with a lecture entitled The Egalitarian Free Labour Promise of the 13th Amendment to the US Constitution, part of the continued efforts to discuss Slavery and the Law at the Faculty. She shared her important research on the anti-slavery, pro-labour vision of the US constitution in a joint session of the first year Constitutional Law course.
Black History Month was also an opportunity to engage in serious conversations about the state of equity in Canadian universities. Professor Malinda Smith led an urgently important discussion of the pivotal work that emerges from The Equity Myth: Racialization and Indigeneity in Canadian Universities. She was welcomed by the University’s Provost, Christopher Manfredi, whose office co-sponsored the reception with the Faculty of Law (Henderson Fund). The next day, Professor Sirma Bilge, from the University of Montreal, helped to extend that conversation to Quebec (co-sponsored by the Office of the Associate Dean (Academic) of the Faculty of Law.
"Each event was extremely well attended. One student referred to them as ‘soul-nurturing.’ A take away is that these kinds of events are all too infrequent and critically important at McGill, year long," Professor Blackett concluded.
This article originally appeared in the March 2018 online edition of Focus Law.
Black History Month 2018 in Pictures
A gallery of images of the Black History Month 2018 events organized by the LLDRL is available here.
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