Reflections on the 2L OCI process from a WOC perspective
Angry Brown Girl (2L)*
On-Campus Interviews. Also known as OCIs. The term—and the way upper years describe it—conjure images akin to some type of ordeal out of a 90s preteen fantasy novel about knights and magic. Hearing the term “OCIs” is enough to send shivers down most 2Ls’ spines.
For me, OCIs represented that very confusing moment where I would finally have to confront the question of who I am. I mean, I’m an old-ass bitch. I should know who I am by now. But, in reality, since having first stepped into the uncomfortably white space of the Jackman Law building in August 2017, I seemed to have lost a piece of my identity. No lie, I had never been around so many white people. Suddenly in law school, not only did I have to re-learn how to be a student, but I also had to re-learn acceptable performativity—of femininity, of intelligence, of competency.
So when 3Ls, CDO staff, and lawyer mentors recommended that I not worry about OCIs (“Just be yourself and have fun with it!”), you can be assured that I did not know what the fuck they were talking about. I hadn’t been myself for over a year now. And I hadn’t had fun since I walked through Jackman’s doors. And not just because I was too busy reading my ass off all of 1L, but because beyond Donoghue v Stevenson, R v Jordan, etc. etc., what I had actually learned about was how me and my ass, in all its brownness, weren’t totally acceptable at the law school or in law—at least not without some level of revision, filtering, or whatever.
I was asked to write about my experiences with OCIs. Let me sum this up for you: OCIs were a shit show—before, during, and after. A shit-show of self-doubt that started at birth but really exploded into full-blown insecurity in 1L. And in today’s legal atmosphere where Diversity Statements are resisted and Canadian colonial racist remarks are recited in courtrooms, you can bet that at OCIs, this shit-show-turned-full-blown-insecurity felt a lot like I was trying to contain within my frame a series of episodes of explosive diarrhea. Diarrhea at each booth. And worse of all, I had to repress my diarrhea with the squeeze of my glutes at every step, disguising my extreme discomfort (an understatement) with a shiny suit I couldn’t afford and shit-tons of makeup.
The worst part? No one could tell I felt like I was drowning in shit. Because, by now, I have learned how to perform “U of T law student” so well.
*The author’s name has been anonymized at her request.
