Toronto – Selwyn Pieters has filed an application before the Human Rights Tribunal of Ontario (HRTO) that raises the issues of racial profiling and Denial of Access to a Door accessible to lawyers and members of the public at the Law Society of Upper Canada: Pieters v. Law Society of Upper Canada <http://selwynpieters.com/documen…/Pieters_HRTO_Narrative.pdf>
On July 5, 2016, Mr. Pieters took his student to the Society. The guard on duty was shown Pieters LSUC Card. The Guard aggressively demanded that the card be removed from the wallet. The Guard invaded Mr. Pieters space and grabbed the card out of his hands. The Guard denied Mr. Pieters and his student entry through the door. The Guard never checked LSUC Database to see whether or not Pieters was a lawyer in Good Standing. A video exist that shows the conduct of the Guard, prior to, during and after the interaction with Pieters. Mr. Pieters asserts that he was “was racially profiled at the Law Society of Upper Canada (“LSUC”), treated differently from other lawyers and denied access to the door that is normally accessible to lawyers and members of the public alike.”
Mr. Pieters believes that “The treatment at the LSUC to which I was subjected on July 05, 2016 fosters and perpetrates the social and professional exclusion of Black lawyers at the facilities of the LSUC by employing security screening in a manner that adversely treat a Black member and a Black student as imposters, not belong there… based on conscious or unconscious stereotypes.”