Founding of the chair

In 2005, Shirley E. Greenberg, retired lawyer and class of 1976 alumnus, made an outstanding donation in support of  activities related to women and the legal profession, permanently endowing the Shirley E. Greenberg Chair for Women and the Legal Profession in the Common Law Section of the Faculty of Law. Beginning with her annual support in 2002, legal issues that are important to women have received wonderful support from Ms. Greenberg. Thanks to this generous gift, the Greenberg Chair is now permanently established at the law school.

Role of the chair

The Shirley E. Greenberg Chair is held by professors in the University of Ottawa, Faculty of Law.  It is designed to circulate among qualified feminist faculty members. The holder of the Chair works with a large existing group of feminist scholars, all committed to women’s equality through law, to encourage women to enter the profession, to train legal professionals to deliver services to women, to connect women in law school with women in the legal profession, and to further law reform and research impacting on women as clients and women in the profession.

The advances [in the battle for women’s rights and equality] are great compared with what it was like when I was a young woman. Women are much better able to move into whatever field and endeavour they choose, without the barriers that we experienced then. In some ways, it is still a man’s world. I would like to see more women in the House of Commons; I would like to see more women running for office and as leaders of parties. But we are getting there." 

Shirley Greenberg has been a trailblazer in the Canadian women's movement for most of her adult life. She helped found the Ottawa Women's Centre, from which subsequently developed the Rape Crisis Centre, the Women's Career Counseling Centre and Interval House, a refuge for battered women. She entered the University of Ottawa's law school in the 1970s; while still busy raising three children.

After obtaining her law degree, Ms. Greenberg went on to create the first all-female law practice in Ottawa. Many of the most successful women lawyers in Ontario today began their careers in the law office of Shirley Greenberg.

Throughout her career, she fought systemic discrimination against women in laws and legal documents. Greenberg has since retired from the practice of the law, but her commitment to improving the lives of women continues.

With the help of her generous donation, the Shirley E. Greenberg Centre for Women's Health was established at the Riverside campus of the Ottawa Hospital. This centre, specializing in gynecology and cancer detection, puts particular emphasis on the well-being of older women.

Deadline: September 16, 2024

The Greenberg Chair will fund five honorariums in the amount of $200 each to five different professors in five different courses in the 2024-2025 academic year. These honoraria are available exclusively to professors teaching in the Faculty of Law, Common Law Section. The honorarium will allow professors to invite a guest lecturer or visitor that will speak on a feminist or critical race topic.

To apply, please write to Jamie Liew, Greenberg Chair at [email protected].

Applicants are asked to please answer the following questions:

1. Please identify the course code, course name, semester the course is offered and how many people are anticipated to be taking the course.
2. Please name the guest speaker and what their proposed talk will focus on. Please indicate the feminist and critical race themes the speaker will be touching on. Please indicate why the professor is inviting this person and how it relates to the overall course objectives.
3. If you have research funds, professional expense reimbursement (PER) funds or other professional related funds, please indicate why you cannot use these funds for an honorarium.

Books:

1. Sharryn Aiken, Catherine Dauvergne, Colin Grey, Gerald Heckman, Jamie Liew, Constance MacIntosh, Immigration and Refugee Law: Cases, Materials, and Commentary, 3rd Edition (Emond Montgomery, 2020).
2. Jamie Chai Yun Liew and Donald Galloway, Immigration Law (Toronto: Irwin Law, 2015).

Book Chapters:

1. Jamie Liew, “Statelessness & the Administrative State: The Legal Prowess of the First-Line Bureaucrat in Malaysia” in Tendayi Bloom & Lindsey Kingston, eds, Statelessness, Governance, and the Problem of Citizenship (Manchester University Press, 2021).
2. Kristy Belton and Jamie Liew, “The Unmaking of Citizens: Shifting Borders of Belonging” in Molly Land and Katherine Libal, eds, Beyond Borders: The Human Rights of Non-Citizens at Home and Abroad (Cambridge University Press, 2021).
3. Jamie Chai Yun Liew,“Preventing the Spread of Anti-Asian Racism: Including Critical Race Analysis in a Pandemic Plan”in Colleen Flood, Vanessa MacDonnell, Jane Philpott, Sophie Theriault & Sridhar Venkatapuram, eds, Vulnerable: The Policy, Law and Ethics of COVID-19 (Ottawa: University of Ottawa Press, 2020).
4. Jamie Chai Yun Liew, “Legal Issues Regarding Refugees and Mental Illness” in Jennifer Chandler and Colleen Flood, eds, Law & Mind: Mental Health Law and Policy in Canada (Toronto: LexisNexis, 2016) 471-495.

Selected Articles:

1. Jamie Liew, Pia Zambelli, Pierre-Andre Theriault, and Maureen Silcoff, “Not Just the Luck of the Draw? Exploring Competency of Counsel as a Factor in Federal Court Leave Determinations in Refugee Cases (2005-2010)” (2021) 37:1 Refuge 61.
2. Jamie Liew, “The Good, the Bad and the Ugly: A Preliminary Assessment of whether the Vavilov Framework Adequately Addressees Concerns of Marginalized Persons in the Immigration and Refugee Context” (2020) 98:2 Canadian Bar Review 388.
3. Jamie Liew, “The Law’s Broken Promises to Stateless Persons” (2020) 26:2 Brown Journal of World Affairs 2.
4. Jamie Chai Yun Liew, “The Invisible Women: Migrant and Immigrant Sex Workers and Law Reform in Canada” (2020) 14:1 Studies in Social Justice 90-116.
5. Jamie Chai Yun Liew, “Homegrown Statelessness in Malaysia and the Promise of the Principle of Genuine and Effective Links” (2019) 1:1 Statelessness and Citizenship Review 95.
6. Shauna Labman & Jamie Chai Yun Liew, “Law and Moral Licensing: The making of illegality and illegitimacy along the border” (2019) 5:3 International Journal of Migration and Border Studies 188.
7. Y.Y. Brandon Chen, Vanessa Gruben, Jamie Chai Yun Liew, “’A Legacy of Confusion’: An Exploratory Study of Service Provision under the Reinstated Interim Federal Health Program” (2018) 34:2 Refuge 94.
8. Jamie Chai Yun Liew, “Denying Refugee Protection to LGBTQ and Marginalized Persons: A Retrospective Look at State Protection in Canadian Refugee Law” (2017) 29:2 Canadian Journal of Women and the Law 290, a special issue commemorating Nicole LaViolette’s work.
9. Jamie Liew, Prasanna Balasundaram and Jennifer Stone, “Troubling Trends in Excluding Family Members Via Regulation 117(9)(d): A Survey of Jurisprudence and Lawyers” (2017) 26 Journal of Law and Social Policy 112.
10. Jamie Chai Yun Liew, “The Ultrahazardous Activity of Excluding Family Members in Canada’s Immigration System” (2016) 94:2 Canadian Bar Review 281-308.
11. Jamie Chai Yun Liew, “Finding Order in Calgary’s Cash Corner: Using Legal Pluralism to Craft Legal Remedies for Conflicts Involving Marginalized Persons in Public Spaces” (2015) 52:3 Alberta Law Review 605-634.
12. Jamie Chai Yun Liew, “Taking it Personally: Delimiting Gender-Based Claims using the Complementary Protection Provision in Canada’s Refugee Definition” (2014) 26:2 Canadian Journal of Women and the Law 300-330.
13. Jamie Chai Yun Liew, “Finding Common Ground: Charter Remedies and Challenges for Marginalized Persons in Public Spaces” (2012) 1:1 Canadian Journal of Poverty Law 1-31.
14. Jamie Chai Yun Liew, “Beyond Country of Origin: Smith v Canada and Refugees from Unexpected Places” (2011) 23:2 Canadian Journal of Women and the Law 686-696.
15. Jamie Chai Yun Liew, “Managing the Fear of the Tsunami: Canada’s Proposed Policy to Detain Boat People and Lessons Learned from the United States’ Detention Policies” (2011) 13:1 Rutgers Race & Law Review 1-68.
16. Jamie Chai Yun Liew, “Creating Higher Burdens: the Presumption of State Protection in Democratic Countries” (2009) 26:2 Refuge 207-221.