In 2005, Shirley E. Greenberg, graduate of the Common Law class of 1976, made an outstanding donation in support of activities related to women and the legal profession, permanently endowing the Shirley Greenberg Chair at the Common Law Section. Sadly, Ms. Greenberg passed away in 2022 but the Chair is one of the ways her memory lives on. The Greenberg Chair is designed to circulate amongst qualified feminist faculty members. The holder of the Chair works with a large existing group of feminist scholars 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 women as clients and women in the profession.
Professor Jamie Liew is a leading voice in the field of immigration, refugee and citizenship law. She works to demystify laws and legal processes, while critiquing how law marginalizes certain groups of people. Her international and interdisciplinary research draws on critical feminist, race and socio-legal theories and methods, centering on the legal but also the social and political implications that laws and policies have on racialized persons, women, LGBTQ2S+ persons, and those with disabilities. From 2021 to 2023, she served as Director of the Institute of Feminist and Gender Studies at the Faculty of Social Sciences where she cultivated relationships with researchers doing interdisciplinary and anti-racist, feminist work. Professor Liew’s debut novel, Dandelion (Arsenal Pulp Press, 2022), generated public discussion on women’s experiences with migration, motherhood, and statelessness. Earlier this year, Professor Liew published Ghost Citizens: Decolonial Apparitions of Stateless, Foreign and Wayward Figures in Law (Fernwood Publishing), which examines the legal and administrative systems that post-colonial states have inherited and continue to use in conferring and denying citizenship.
As Greenberg Chair, Professor Liew will aim to showcase the feminist and anti-racist research happening at the Faculty of Law, while inviting practitioners, scholars and persons with lived experiences to be in dialogue with both the law school and the broader legal communities. She also plans to continue the work of her predecessors in pursuing decolonization and reconciliation projects, building collaborations with feminist colleagues and organizations that have expertise in Indigenous legal traditions, critical race, and LGBTQ2S+ issues. She will work to create opportunities for law students to connect with leading practitioners and community members, and to explore what a feminist and entrepreneurial legal career can look like.
Professor Liew is the seventh Greenberg Chair since its inception in 2002, following Professor Elizabeth Sheehy (twice: 2002-05 and 2013-16); Professor Sanda Rodgers (2005-07); Professor Martha Jackman (2007-11); Professor Rosemary Cairns Way (2011-13); Professor Angela Cameron (2016-20); and Professor Natasha Bakht (2020-24).
Congratulations to Professor Liew!
The Common Law Section also extends its warmest appreciation to Professor Natasha Bakht for her exemplary stewardship of the Greenberg Chair since her appointment in 2020. Professor Bakht successfully guided the Chair through the pandemic years, delivering an exceptional slate of popular and thought-provoking events, offering unwavering support to student groups and student initiatives, and supporting and promoting ground-breaking feminist legal research and activism!
Thank you, Natasha!