Law students bring black youth together with role models

Aim to increase minority law school enrolment
Feb 11/08
by Maria Saros Leung (email)

In the corridor of the Faculty of Law’s Flavelle House hangs a photo of Ivy Lawrence Maynier, the first woman of colour to graduate from the faculty in 1945.

With few black students and lawyers to look up to, the trail Maynier blazed would have been a lonely one. Today, Moya Teklu and Renee Smith, co-chairs of the U of T chapter of the Black Law Students’ Association (BLSA), are making black youth feel empowered to choose law as a career path by connecting them with black lawyers and judges.

See Yourself Here was born out of a lunchtime brainstorming session between Teklu and Smith. The one-day open house held Jan. 19 brought together young black high school and undergraduate students with black legal professionals as a way of encouraging black youth to pursue professional studies at the Faculty of Law.

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