Plenary Session 1

Laverne Jacobs is Professor of Law at Windsor Law, and a former Associate Dean (Research & Graduate Studies).

Dr. Jacobs researches and teaches in the areas of law and disability, human rights, access to administrative justice, and administrative law and theory. Dr. Jacobs is the founding Director of the Law, Disability & Social Change Project which is housed at Windsor Law. She is also Co-Director of the Disability Rights Working Group at the Berkeley Center on Comparative Equality & Anti-Discrimination Law.

Dr. Jacobs has worked with NGOs and served on the Board of Directors of many organizations including the Income Security Advocacy Centre, the Canadian Institute for the Administration of Justice and Beyond Disability of Windsor-Essex. She has held public appointments on tribunals and in government, including serving as a member of the Advisory Council to the Ontario Minister responsible for the Accessibility for Ontarians with Disabilities Act, and as a part-time member of the Human Rights Tribunal of Ontario. She is the recipient of several awards for her scholarship and equity leadership.

Finally, in June 2021, Dr. Jacobs was named Canada’s nominee for the UN Committee on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities.

Khalid Janmohamed is the inaugural Director, Legal Clinic Programs at the Lincoln Alexander School of Law. Based out of Toronto, Khalid is an experienced lawyer with a professional history in both the Ontario legal clinic system and litigation firms, and a past life in computer engineering.

Khalid has joined the Lincoln Alexander School of Law from the HIV & AIDS Legal Clinic Ontario (HALCO), where he was Director of Litigation Services and a Staff Lawyer. During his time at HALCO, Khalid served legal aid clients across most areas of legal clinic law and led HALCO’s law reform efforts. Khalid has developed particular expertise in human rights, privacy, public health, and Charter-related cases, as well as in employment and insurance law. Khalid is passionate about social justice, human rights, and teaching, and regularly acted as a supervisor and mentor for HALCO’s other lawyers and students.

Lorin MacDonald is a human rights lawyer and Founder of HearVue (external link) , a social enterprise encouraging communication inclusion at in-person/online events and digital content via captioning and subtitles.

Lorin’s decades-long leadership, passion, and commitment to accessibility and inclusion are apparent, informed by her lived experience as a woman born with profound hearing loss. As one of Canada’s top voices in accessibility and disability issues, her approach is grounded in evidence-based research and recognizes the role of intersectionality in people’s lives. Through awareness training, writing, and as an in-demand speaker, Lorin strives to equip those misinformed or unconscious of accessibility barriers with the tools to create inclusive spaces. Her LinkedIn posts providing commentary on current disability issues often go viral.

Lorin was featured in a Canadian Press article discussing the challenges of living with hearing loss during COVID-19. In addition, she has made several presentations to law schools, the legal profession, and mainstream organizations about the disproportional effect of COVID on Canadians living with disabilities.

The recipient of numerous awards from her community, university, the province, and the legal profession, Canadian Lawyer magazine named Lorin one of its 2021 Top 25 Most Influential Lawyers in the Human Rights category. The Women’s Executive Network recognized her as a 2021 Canada’s Most Powerful Women: Top 100, honouring her with an Inclusion Vanguard award.

A proud alumna of Western University’s Faculty of Law, Lorin resides in Toronto, Ontario and can be reached at lorin@hearvue.com.

Dr. Jennifer Orange is an assistant professor in the Lincoln Alexander School of Law. Prior to that, she was a post-doctoral fellow at the Bill Graham Institute for Contemporary International History at the University of Toronto, a member of the Human Rights Tribunal of Ontario and a litigator at Torys LLP.

Her interdisciplinary research investigates the ways that cultural institutions support the dissemination and evolution of human rights norms. Her work explains how human rights communities of practice that include both state and non-state actors can promote a human rights culture. Orange is also conducting research on the return of cultural artefacts to Indigenous communities.

Orange has written in the areas of international law, constitutional law, human rights, truth and reconciliation, and museology, including publications in Human Rights Quarterly, the UCLA Journal of International Law and Foreign Affairs, and the Journal of Museum Management and Curatorship. She has held a number of fellowships, including a Jackman Humanities Institute-Mellon Fellowship.

As of April 2021, Jennifer has been appointed as a part-time member of the Canadian Human Rights Tribunal for a 5 year term.

Julia Shin Doi is General Counsel, Secretary of the Board of Governors and University Privacy Officer of Ryerson University. As an Executive Group member, she provides legal and governance advice and has operational responsibility for access to information, privacy, records management, and compliance. Julia leads a team of lawyers and professionals, and advises the board.

She is a founder and past president of the Federation of Asian Canadian Lawyers and a founding member of the Korean Canadian Lawyers Association. She co-founded the Roundtable of Diversity Associations which brings together diverse professional associations and founded the Women’s General Counsel chapter of the Women’s Law Association of Ontario and Women General Counsel Canada to support senior women in law.

Rinaldo Walcott is a Professor at the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education and the Director of Women and Gender Studies Institute; he is also a member of the Graduate Program in Cinema Studies of Faculty of Arts and Science at the University of Toronto. His teaching and research is in the area of black diaspora cultural studies and postcolonial studies with an emphasis on questions of sexuality, gender, nation, citizenship and multiculturalism.

From 2002-2007 Rinaldo held the Canada Research Chair of Social Justice and Cultural Studies where the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada, the Canadian Foundation funded his research for Innovation and the Ontario Innovation Trust. From January 2010 to June 2010 Rinaldo was Senior Research Fellow at the Warfield Center for African American Studies and the Department of African Diaspora and African Studies at the University of Texas at Austin. Before joining OISE UT Rinaldo was Associate Professor in the Division of Humanities, at York University. While at York, he served as the Graduate Program Director of Interdisciplinary Studies.

As an interdisciplinary black studies scholar, Rinaldo has published in a wide range of venues. His articles have appeared in journals and books, as well as popular venues like newspapers and magazines. He often comments on black cultural life for radio and TV. Rinaldo received his PhD. from OISE the University of Toronto in 1996.