Halifax hosts Black Law Students' Association of Canada conference

Halifax is playing host to this year's Black Law Students' Association of Canada conference which is running until Sunday.

The conference is aimed at increasing Black representation in the legal profession.  

More than 500 people are here to discuss ways to change the face and some of the failings of the Canadian Justice systems.

Mirabelle Harris-Eze (MHE), the national president of The Black Law Students' Association of Canada, spoke with the CBC's Tom Murphy (TM) on Friday.

This interview has been edited for clarity and length.

TM: Why is this conference important for Black law students to attend?  

MHE: I think community is the biggest word here. We are coming together as a community. Often times, with Black law students being underrepresented in their law school and even just in society at large, it means something almost radical when you come together and see people that have similar lived experiences as you, similar challenges, similar successes.

We are also having educational sessions, seminars. We're showing Black law students that they deserve to be in law school and they deserve to be amazing lawyers, which they inevitably will be. We're also bringing in Black pre-law students and making sure that the future of justice in this country is as diverse as it can be.

TM: What does Black representation look like right now in the justice system?

MHE: If we look at the justice system specifically, we see that Black people are overrepresented in the criminal justice system and underrepresented in law schools. And that comes to this issue with lawyers not being culturally competent or judges potentially giving sentences that might not be equitable, having Black people more over-policed. So when we have more Black law students, we have more Black lawyers, we have more Black lawyers that are culturally competent arguing cases before their courts and their countries. 

The Black Law Students' Association of Canada recently released a report on the number of Black law students across the country. And we believe that this issue, in terms of who law schools are admitting into their law school, is really important because law schools are shaping the people that are creating law in our country, creating what gets to be a right, what gets to not be a right, what is held to be important when it comes to the criminal justice system. 

And so when you are not being representative of the reflection of Canada, there's going to be serious issues here. So really, this conference is about the stakes at hand in terms of justice in Canada, but also ensuring there's community solidarity and community support and more diversity in law schools.

TM: What kinds of things do young prospective Black law students tell you about their feelings about getting into a career? 

MHE: There's very varied perspectives. I think there is a general feeling that certain law firms and legal opportunities are not as inclusive as they should be and, historically, do not have as much Black representation as they should have. And some law students are sometimes feeling that they might have to code switch or maybe change certain aspects of themselves to be successful in particular workplaces, which is really unfortunate. 

And so part of the advocacy of the Black Law Students' Association of Canada is for workplaces to be more culturally competent and more aware that lawyers shouldn't have to change fundamental things about themselves to be able to advance and not be seen as the odd one out in a law firm. And so I think there's varied opportunities and varied perspectives, but generally a lot of law students are feeling that there is progress being made, but there's a lot more that needs to be made.

TM: You're hosting this conference in a city where racial profiling was used in policing with street checks. And there have been other examples of racism in the justice system, of course. But what evidence do you see that attitudes are changing?

MHE: We see this in courts that are beginning to be able to acknowledge racism in our justice system.… Thinking about race-based sentencing and whether or not race should be considered when deciding how long sentences should be. We see law schools and environments trying to teach more aspects of critical race theory, trying to think more deeply and critically about how race shapes people's perspectives in our country. And so there are general ideas that there needs to be a discussion about this and we can't just have a colour-blind analysis forever. You need to address the elephant in the room and that's the only way that change is going to happen.

For more stories about the experiences of Black Canadians — from anti-Black racism to success stories within the Black community — check out Being Black in Canada, a CBC project Black Canadians can be proud of. You can read more stories here.