Controversy dogs plans for new Christian law school
LANGLEY, BC—Trinity Western University president Jonathan Raymond has no doubt about what motivates those seeking to kill a proposed new law school on campus.
"They're opposed to Christian institutions," he says. "They're opposed to Christian higher education."
The law school proposal was submitted to the B.C. government and the Federation of Law Societies of Canada in June. If approved, the school will emphasize charity law, an area of instruction that Raymond believes is lacking in Canada's law schools, and at the same time "fits our mission." The first classes would be taught in September 2015.
But the Canadian Council of Law Deans is against the proposal. It says that TWU's biblically-based "community covenant" discriminates against gays and lesbians by forbidding same-sex and extramarital relationships.
"TWU should not be permitted," Dalhousie University law professor Elaine Craig writes in the Canadian Journal of Women and the Law, "to impose upon the public a religiously grounded program that is incompetent to deliver a legal education consistent with what the regulators of the law profession in Canada have identified as necessary to protect the public."
Raymond calls such allegations "very damaging and defamatory."
"We know we have gay students," he says, "and we have a code of conduct. We say, 'When you come, you sign off on being a member of this community according to the community consensus around a code of conduct.'
"And students come, because this university truly is a safe place for everyone."
In response, many both inside and outside the legal community, Christian and non-Christian, are supporting TWU. In a letter to the Federation of Law Societies, the B.C. Civil Liberties Association argues what the law deans are saying in effect is that "those who are religiously minded should be excluded from all legal education."
"Positing that academic freedom does not exist in religious educational institutions," BCCLA president Lindsay Lyster writes, "becomes a front for asserting that the religious perspective simply cannot be taught anywhere."
This is not the first time TWU has been accused of discrimination. In 1996, the B.C. College of Teachers refused to approve the school's teacher education program, claiming that its code of conduct could turn out school teachers who were homophobic. That fight went all the way to the Supreme Court of Canada. In 2001, it ruled that a religious school is not bound by human rights codes that prohibit discrimination against homosexuals.
And in 2009, the Canadian Association of University Teachers accused TWU of allowing "unwarranted and unacceptable constraints on academic freedom" by requiring faculty members to sign a statement of faith.
"There's no end to this," says Raymond. "There will always be pushback against Christian institutions in a culture that is so secular, and where there's a lot of hostility within academia towards Christianity. So we have to learn to live and work with it."
"Many Canadian elites suffer from a lack of imagination," John Stackhouse, professor of theology and culture at Regent College, writes in an e-mail. "They really can't seem to imagine a Canada that includes people who deeply disagree about important issues and values, and yet still make a common life together.
"The law deans have to decide whether they truly believe in tolerating, let alone valuing, diversity or whether they in fact will insist that everyone conform to their view of what is right and good."
Dear Readers:
ChristianWeek relies on your generous support. please take a minute and donate to help give voice to stories that inform, encourage and inspire.
Donations of $20 or more will receive a charitable receipt.Thank you, from Christianweek.
