The BC Law Society will revoke approval of a law school at Langley’s Trinity Western University after benchers voted 25 to 1 to abide by a referendum that saw 74 per cent of lawyers vote against the proposed TWU program.
The vote reverses an earlier decision by the society to recognize TWU law graduates.
The university requires students to abide by a covenant that forbids intimacy outside heterosexual marriage, which some argue discriminates against those in the LGBT community.
“It has the Law Society on the right side of history,” says Victoria lawyer Michael Mulligan of today’s vote. “The benchers listened to the very clear message delivered now twice by the legal profession, voting in historic and overwhelming numbers, directing the benchers to revoke approval for this school as a result of its discriminatory policies.”
“If they were to agree to stop seeking to discipline and expel students for their private sexual activity, I expect they would receive a much different answer from the legal profession.”
Trinity Western spokesperson Guy Saffold told Global BC that the school will “assess our options going forward in light of what the Law Society has done.”
“We think this is a case in which the Law Society has engaged in a serious practice of discrimination against our Christian community,” says Saffold.
“Our argument is that we welcome all people to come to Trinity Western, but for the time that they’re students we ask them to abide by our covenant. In Canada, we are a diverse society. We have people of different views and we think those different views should be accepted and tolerated.”
Law societies in Ontario and Nova Scotia have voted against accrediting Trinity law graduates, and New Brunswick’s society passed a resolution directing its council not to accredit the law school. The university has launched legal challenges of those decisions in court.
-with files from Justin McElroy and Canadian Press
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