Posted on March 25, 2019

Lawyer Threatened with Suspension over ‘Diversity’ Mandate Quits

WND, March 23, 2019

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Murray Klippenstein said he has always worked to advance social justice and is “horrified” to see what his own professional regulator was imposing, the Christian Institute said.

In reaction to a disputed report charging “systemic racism” in the legal profession, the Law Society of Ontario made lawyers abide by a “Statement of Principles.”

The statement requires lawyers to acknowledge “their obligation to promote equality, diversity and inclusion generally.”

Lawyers also must “demonstrate a personal valuing” of those concepts, the law society said.

Klippenstein said the law society “was demanding that lawyers and paralegals draft and then obey a set of specific political ideas – both in their personal and professional lives – as a condition of their license.”

He said he would not be told what to say or what to value, so he’s refusing to comply.

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“Today, we are being told to promote ‘equality, diversity and inclusion.’ But once this line has been crossed, the content doesn’t matter. And tomorrow, we might be asked to pledge allegiance to some other ideological doctrine,” he warned.

He established his social justice credentials in a column for Quillette.

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Klippenstein said he’s “horrified by what my own professional regulator is doing in the name of that same cause.”

He said that largely vague claims of racism prompted the society to demand the new statement of principles.

“This development left me flabbergasted: Our regulator was demanding that lawyers and paralegals draft and then obey a set of specific political ideas – both in their personal and professional lives – as a condition of their license,” he said.

Failure, he said, would likely result in administrative suspension.

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