This fall, the Law Society of Upper Canada’s Discrimination and Harassment Counsel (DHC) released a report summarizing complaints from legal professionals and members of the public over the past 10 years. The conclusion? Discrimination is still a thing. We take a look at the numbers.
Hot topics
There were 586 discrimination and harassment complaints made against lawyers and articling students from 2003–2012. Below, the most common grounds of discrimination
Note: the sum of the numbers exceeds 586 because many complaints involved multiple grounds of discrimination
† This includes age, family status, religion, ethnic origin, marital status, ancestry, place of origin and record of offences
The gender divide
The vast majority of the 291 sex discrimination complaints made since 2003 were made by women against men. Here’s the breakdown on complainants
†† Of the 29 complaints in this category, 17 were made by men on behalf of women
††† Complaints by men against women were extremely rare. The DHC received a total of nine complaints over the 10-year period
Who’s speaking out
Complaints of sexual discrimination come from both legal professionals and members of the public. Here’s who reported a problem over the past decade
For more on this topic, check out an interview with the author of the report here.