Open Letter to Dean Iacobucci on Behalf of Barriers to Excellence

October 26, 2018

Dear Dean Iacobucci,

Re: Campaign for Excellence without Barriers

Next year, the Faculty’s annual tuition and fees for JD students will be more than $40,000. This is a significant threshold that should give us pause to reflect on the future that we want for our law school. We are adding our names to this open letter because we believe students should be part of envisioning this future, and we want to ensure it is an accessible and diverse one. We applaud the Faculty’s current Excellence without Barriers campaign to bolster the financial aid program. However, without addressing tuition cost, we do not believe that we can begin to meaningfully address the Faculty’s accessibility crisis and its effects on access to justice and student well-being.

We share your vision of a top-tier law school accessible to all qualifying students—regardless of socioeconomic background—from application to graduation. Unfortunately, the Faculty’s current trajectory does not align with this vision. As you know, excellence requires drawing from the widest and most diverse pool. Achievement, not debt tolerance, ought to be the sole criteria of admission.

In order to achieve this excellence, accessibility must be a guarantee built into the system of the law school—not merely an aspiration contingent on the charity of alumni donors. Without a plan to address tuition and operating costs, donations will have a diminishing return on investment for alumni and our law school will become increasingly inaccessible for low and middle-income students. Given the racialized nature of poverty in Canada, this also has significant consequences for racial diversity at U of T Law. Fostering diversity in law schools tangibly furthers the Law Society of Ontario’s vision of a more equal and inclusive profession, as recently ensconced in the individual Statement of Principles required of all licensees.

We want to build a more trusting and collaborative relationship on this issue, and we see improved transparency and accountability as vital to that relationship, especially given the history of broken promises made regarding accessibility and financial aid.

To that end, we request that the Faculty of Law implement a moratorium on tuition increases past $40,000 per year until the following conditions are met:

1. The Faculty conducts a comprehensive financial review of the law school, with publicly accessible results in the form of a report.

In this report, we request, among others, the following information:

1. Projected detailed allocation of the donations from the Campaign for Excellence without Barriers, and projected impact on students (i.e. average increase per student in financial aid, increases in funding towards clinics and student experience, projected timeline of allocation, etc.)   
2. Current fair value of the financial aid pot, as well as sources and amounts of revenue to the fund over the past 5 years
3. A detailed breakdown of current expenses related to student experience, including costs of teaching (adjunct vs. faculty), clinics, moots, externships, trainings, and extracurricular programs
4. Average and median parental incomes of students receiving financial aid since 2015
5. Current fair value of the Faculty of Law’s endowment, and changes in fair value from the previous fiscal year by expense/revenue type (i.e. endowed donations, investment income, fees and expenses, and allocation for spending)
6. The number of students expected to graduate with private debt over $100,000 in 2019

1. Based on the results of the review, the Faculty makes concrete commitments to control costs and protect financial aid allocation, in consultation with alumni and students.

We request the following concrete commitments, among others:

1. Guaranteed allocations of financial aid to low-income applicants upon offers of admission
2. An automatic set-aside of a specific percentage of revenue generated from annual tuition increases, as per Dean Daniels’ promise of a 30% set-aside
3. Monitoring of student accessibility on the basis of an annual independent review, as per Dean Daniels’ proposal in 2002
4. A long-term sustainable plan to ensure tuition remains affordable and consistent
   
   

We hope that these measures will serve as a stepping stone to future constructive discussions about accessibility. As proud students and alumni of this institution, we truly believe in the capacity and desire of all students, staff, faculty and alumni to come up with effective and creative solutions to these issues. We look forward to working with you on this.

Signed,

Alexandra Hergaarden Robertson (JD 2019)
Benjamin Miller (JD/MPP 2020)
Bernard Fishbein (JD 1975)
Brett Hughes (JD 2016)
Christina Roussakis (JD 2020)
Dana O’Shea (JD 2020)
David Baker (JD 1975)
Hesam Wafaei (JD 2020)
Howard Feldman (JD 1975)
India Annamanthadoo (JD 2020)
Ioana Dragalin (JD 2020)
Madeline Torrie (JD 2020)
Sarah Rankin (JD 2014)
Sydney Edmonds (JD 2019)
William Carter (JD 1975)

On Behalf of the Campaign Against Barriers to Excellence

CC: Meric Gertler, President of the University of Toronto; University of Toronto Governing Council; Former Deans Mayo Moran, Ron Daniels, and Robert J. Sharpe; U of T Law Faculty and Staff; Malcolm M. Mercer, LSO Treasurer; Lynne M. J. Vicker, President of the Ontario Bar Association

General Signatories

Alistair Pimlott (JD 2020)
Amber Neumann (JD 2016)
Andrew Luba (JD 2021)
Brad Valley (JD 2016)
Dyna Tuytel (2012)
Emily Hubling (JD 2012)
Jordan Stone (JD 2016)
Kamal Bakhazi (JD 2014)
Karlota Borges (JD 2020)
Liam Turnbull (JD 2021)
Lily Hassall (JD 2019)
Mackenzie Claggett (JD 2022)
Michelle Hayman (JD 2017)
Nargis Fazli (JD 2020)
Nicholas Adamson (JD 2001)
Nick Papageorge (JD 2018)
Rabiya Mansoor (JD 2018)
Renatta Austin (JD 2012)
Sarah Bell-Etkin (JD 2017)
Sukhmani Virdi (JD 2020)
Tess Sheldon (JD 2004)
Tina Cody (JD 2019)