TWU's Law School Still TBD: Reviewing The Ontario Div Court Decision In TWU v LSUC

The controversy continues with the release of the Ontario Divisional Court decision in Trinity Western University v The Law Society of Upper Canada, 2015 ONSC 4250, upholding the Law Society of Upper Canada's decision not to accredit TWU's proposed law school.

There are now conflicting decisions about TWU's law school from courts in Ontario and Nova Scotia, where TWU's judicial review was successful: Trinity Western University v Nova Scotia Barristers' Society, 2015 NSSC 25 (under appeal to the NSCA).

This blog post will review both decisions, and canvass some key differences between them.1

TWU is an evangelical Christian university (see the Ontario decision at paras 6-8). Its planned law school has been controversial primarily because of the "Community Covenant" that all law students would have to sign. As summarized in the Ontario decision, the Covenant prohibits "sexual intimacy that violates the sacredness of marriage between a man and a woman," including a prohibition on sexual intimacy between people of the same sex, whether or not they are married (see paras 12-17). TWU has maintained that LGBTQ students can still be admitted to the university, and could still be admitted to the law school.

Recall that the law societies in both Ontario and Nova Scotia voted against accrediting TWU:

Ontario: On April 24, 2014, Convocation voted to reject TWU as an accredited law school, meaning applicants to the licensing regime in Ontario cannot have law degrees from TWU. Nova Scotia: The next day, on April 25, 2014, the Council of the Nova Scotia Barristers' Society passed a conditional resolution not to allow graduates from TWU's law school to article in Nova Scotia. The condition was this: TWU graduates would be entitled to apply if law students were exempted from the Community Covenant, or the Covenant was amended. The regulatory amendments that followed changed the definition of "law degree" to permit Council to exclude degrees from a law school that discriminated in its admission or enrollment criteria. (See the NS decision at paras 55-60.) TWU and a prospective law student, Brayden Volkenant, applied for judicial review in both jurisdictions. They succeeded in Nova Scotia but not in Ontario, although the Nova Scotia decision is currently under appeal.

To briefly refresh on the Nova Scotia decision, released in January:

On administrative law grounds, Justice Campbell found it was unreasonable for the NSBS to attempt to indirectly regulate the...