Osgoode@125 Historical Photo Exhibit

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  1968 - Not Your Baby

  Cut-and-paste pin-ups would appear sporadically in the Obiter Dicta throughout the 1960s and early 1970s, until female law students fed up with the casual sexism of the newspaper would succeed in getting the feature removed.

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  1968 - Osgoode Hall Law School, York University

  Osgoode Hall Law School is officially affiliated with York University. The School will remain downtown for one more year until the building at York is ready. Osgoode becomes the first law school to allow upper-year students to choose their own courses. This is Osgoode Hall Law School under construction, 1968.

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  1969 - Books and Brutalism

  The new Osgoode Hall Law School building and library opens at York University. Reviews are mixed, with the Toronto Star columnist Harvey Cowan calling the Brutalist-inspired architecture a piece of “visual indigestion.” This is the newly opened law school atrium. Obiter Dicta, September 2, 1969.

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  1970 - The Unquiet Revolution

  Osgoode forms a Clinical Training Committee to supervise the activities of the Community and Legal Assistance Services Programme (CLASP). The original committee includes Professors William Neilson, Garry Watson, Stephen Borins, and students, Terry O’Sullivan and Larry Taman. The October Crisis occurs. In response, Pierre Trudeau introduces the War Measures Act. Believing this to be an unjustifiable suppression of civil liberties, Osgoode students hold a teach-in in protest of the War Measures Act.

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  1971 - Trouble in Paradise

  A student-staffed community legal services clinic is established at Parkdale Community Legal Services. Professor Fred Zemans serves as its first director, and Professor Mary Jane Mossman is its first articling student. Members of the Law Society’s Legal Aid Committee read that Osgoode Hall Law School is operating a storefront law office which would offer free legal advice and debates seeking a legal injunction against the school. They consider withdrawing the name “Osgoode Hall” from the Law School.

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  1972 - The Next Generation

  Osgoode Hall Law School grants its first Bachelor of Laws degree. The Class of 1972 is the first to begin and complete their legal studies at York University. Harry Arthurs becomes the Dean of Osgoode. This is the Yonge and Finch plaza in 1971. Exponential growth would lead to the incorporation of North York as a city.

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  1973 - Doing It For Themselves

  It is recommended that women be added to the faculty to provide female students with role models and diminish the excessively masculine atmosphere of the Law School. Judy LaMarsh ‘50 becomes a visiting Professor of Law at Osgoode. This marks the first time a woman has taught at the Law School. When this picture was taken in 1969, there were only thirty-nine female law students in a school of 579. By the end of the decade, they constitute about one-third of the student body.

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  1973 - Complementary Knowledge

  The first issue of alumni magazine Continuum is printed. The curriculum is expanded to include a joint-degree leading to an LLB/MBA. The combined degree is the first of its kind in Canada. Osgoode’s timing couldn’t have been better. New office towers are redefining the Toronto skyline as large corporations move into the Canadian market and consequently, commercial law firms expand their staff and premises. The first contingent of mature students enters the LLB program. The Financial District, 1978.