What are we teaching?

Re: Standing up for principle, Christie Blatchford, Oct. 1

As a practising lawyer, I find it difficult to express my disappointment and outrage with the blatant hypocrisy of the University of Ottawa’s Common Student Law Society, and its willingness to change election rules when the anticipated results do not fit with the prevailing sentiment.

When are these students going to learn that the legal profession, by its very nature, is obliged to guard society against cultural trends that prevent freedom of thought and speech – that lawyers must vigorously protect the minority from the tyranny of the majority?

And yet, when a Christian, socially conservative, student was about to be elected, the Student Law Society bowed to external pressure and suddenly changed the very election rules.

To gauge how extreme such action was, imagine that the student who was treated this way was Muslim or Black or Indigenous — not only would the entire Canadian media be calling for the removal of the Law School dean, and not only would there be public protests at the school, but politicians would immediately enter the fray to claim Islamophobia or racism.

However, in this case — other than Christie Blatchford’s properly indignant response — we don’t hear even a whimper from anyone else.

How close have we already come to majoritarian authoritarianism — in, of all places, a law school?!

Paul D. Mack, Oshawa, Ont.