Professor Paul Grayson: Ontario Human Rights Code

Ontario Human Rights Code: Professor Paul Grayson has attempted to move the debate from his individual case to a critique of the Ontario Human Rights Code and human-rights bureaucrats. In a published piece, he challenged my assessment that York had done the right thing in insisting on the accommodation. To bolster his position he cites the political and other public support he has received, and says the code itself lacks credibility among a large segment of the population, according to The Star. Accommodation is an individualized assessment that is seldom susceptible to the arbitrary on/off kind of analysis that we have seen in the media since the issue was first reported. Accommodation is also a two-way street in which the two sides, in this case the student and the university, have a responsibility to exchange facts about the need for accommodation and consider the available alternatives in the circumstances and The intense public discussion about a student accommodation issue at York University has provoked comments from politicians, academics and many others, including the professor who turned down the request. A federal minister claims that the York issue demonstrates why Canada went into Afghanistan. A Quebec minister argues that the York experience proves that his governments proposed charter is needed to proactively defend the values of a secular society. I have no personal or professional involvement with this case, and I have no interest in inflaming members of the public by elevating this case into a national spectacle. If it has any national significance, it is this: the York student accommodation issue provides a good demonstration of how human rights principles work reasonably well today under our present laws to balance collective interests against individual rights. (www.immigrantscanada.com). As reported in the news.