Law Commons^™

Coercing Justice? Exploring The "Aspirations And Practice" Of Law As A Tool In Struggles Against Social Inequalities, Karen Schucher

PhD Dissertations

This dissertation examines the role of law as a tool in struggles against social inequalities, by tracing the history of Ontario’s human rights legislation and enforcement from the enactment of fair practices statutes in the 1950s through the restructuring of the enforcement regime in 2006. Ontario was the first Canadian province to pass anti-discrimination legislation and to establish a human rights commission enforcement process. This legislation and the commission enforcement process were the models for all other Canadian jurisdictions.

The dissertation approaches the role of law through the framework of tensions between the “aspirations” and the “practices” of law. On …

Lgbtq Experiences With The Courts: The Role Of Gender Nonconformity And Assertiveness, Alexis Forbes

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Using lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer (LGBTQ) and non-LGBTQ participants, a pair of studies explored the influence of LGBTQ identity and gender nonconformity (GNC) in experiences of discrimination in court settings. A one-way ANOVA tested whether LGBTQ participants were more likely to score low on the treatment in court scale. Additionally, two separate multiple regression analyses tested whether high scores on the Gender Nonconformity Scale (GNCS; Forbes & Nadal, under review), were associated with low scores on a measure of treatment in court. It was discovered that LGBTQ identity did not have a statistically significant effect on factor in …