You might remember the case of Trinity Western University, a college that wanted to set up a law school, only to be told that its law graduates would not be accredited in certain provincial law societies. Why? Well, because these graduates dared to attend a school that banned its students from having sex outside of heterosexual marriage.
Now, courts in British Columbia and Nova Scotia sided with Trinity Western, saying it would violate students’ religious freedom to deny them licenses to practice law on this basis. But Ontario’s highest court sided with the law societies and the case went to the Supreme Court, which decided in a 7-2 vote that the law societies were correct, according to The Daily Caller News Foundation. The court’s majority opinion said:
“Limiting access to membership in the legal profession on the basis of personal characteristics, unrelated to merit, is inherently inimical to the integrity of the legal profession.”
But here’s the thing: the Supreme Court is ALSO limiting access to the legal profession by letting law societies deny licenses to students not based on how well they did in law school, but simply because they voluntarily attended a school that wanted them to have a traditionally Christian sex life.
It was a long and costly battle but, as I reported last month, Canada’s Supreme Court ruled 7-2 that law societies would be able to deny licenses to students attending a school that made them live a traditional sex life, or, no sex outside of heterosexual marriage. The court said “limiting access to membership in the legal profession on the basis of personal characteristics, unrelated to merit, is inherently inimical to the integrity of the legal profession,” reported The Daily Caller News Foundation.
This was after courts in Nova Scotia and British Columbia sided with the school, arguing that if law societies denied students licenses to practice law based on the school’s policy, it would violate their religious freedom. So this month, the school said:
“In furtherance of our desire to maintain TWU as a thriving community of Christian believers that is inclusive of all students wishing to learn from a Christian viewpoint and underlying philosophy, the Community Covenant will no longer be mandatory as of the 2018-19 Academic year with respect to admission of students to, for continuation of students at, the University,” according to The Daily Caller.
Of course, part of the traditional Christian viewpoint is abstinence until marriage. Some things just aren’t a la carte.
Perhaps the most egregious instance of social justice dichotomies also uses the word “inclusive” and I’m talking about the phrase “inclusive excellence”: excellence, by definition, is not inclusive, and yet some schools are sacrificing the most intellectually qualified candidates for ones that have a certain melanin level, genitalia, and who knows what else. This reminds me that Harvard might be paying the piper for alleged Asian American discrimination in October. We live in interesting times, folks.
