1Ls react to speaker’s comments on #MeToo
The sexual assault allegations against movie producer Harvey Weinstein were first reported in October 2017. This month marks the one-year, post-Weinstein anniversary of #MeToo, a collective reckoning of the extent that men in professional positions abuse their power.
On October 12, Andrew M. Shaughnessy, a Partner at Torys LLP and an Adjunct Moot Advisor at the University of Toronto Faculty of Law, gave a presentation to the 1L class at their mandatory professionalism session; the portion on the #MeToo movement has proved controversial. At least one slide, where #MeToo was misspelled #MeeToo, was removed by Assistant Dean Sara Faherty before she posted the presentation online.
Shaughnessy cautioned at the beginning that he was not the best person to speak to the #MeToo movement, but that he included the slides because it was topical.
“In the age of #MeToo, we need better standards, not just to avoid being called out later… You can’t be called out if you live your life to a high standard of behaviour,” he said.
Shaughnessy mentioned, by way of example, that a female colleague of his retired at 9 PM while on business trips “because nothing good happens after 9 PM.” He continued, “To change our behaviour so that fifty percent of our colleagues don’t have to live in fear of unwanted advances, #MeToo does not have to mean it happened to me too. I want #MeToo to mean, ‘I went out and got clients.’ ‘#MeToo.’ I’m saying that we need to treat women with respect… In an age where #MeToo is happening, if we lived our life to a higher standard, hopefully this behaviour can be eradicated.”
In a vivid illustration of the problem #MeToo attempts to address, he provided the 1Ls with a cautionary tale of the “Class of DDS 2015 Gentleman’s Facebook Group,” the controversy of dental students at Dalhousie University in 2011–12. He apologized that some of the bullet points on the slide were offensive.
He emphasized that students should be very mindful of their conduct, even during their early days. “I’m sure that some of these guys thought it was okay to have a Facebook group, but obviously look what happened as their behaviour devolved,” he warned.
Shaughnessy concluded, “Everything is hard: hard in the sense of striving to obtain a standard that you might think is unattainable but actually isn’t if you work at it.”
Student reactions to Shaughnessy’s presentation were pointed.
“It was viscerally painful to sit through that session as a [sexual assault] survivor. I shouldn’t have to be in tears after a mandatory training session, supposedly on ethics, that is required for me to become a lawyer,” commented Anne*, a female 1L.
“Shaughnessy gave many tips on how to essentially get away with rape: don’t talk about it online, don’t post problematic pictures. What about women that are victimized and assaulted in the legal profession?”
“I see the school as complicit in feeding rape culture at the law school and the legal profession,” continued Anne.
“I found him pretty funny during that talk and I was surprisingly engaged, until he talked about [#MeToo]… When he was like “I wish we had a new type of #MeToo, and he was like “‘I got a new client’ ‘me too’”… It’s unfortunate because I think he did try hard to approach a subject in a respectful way but he just completely missed the point entirely,” said Christopher*, a male 1L.
“The actual problem is systemic oppression—women have not been given a safe space to express their trauma and without even addressing this, he then goes on to paint a picture-perfect world where #MeToo is used in an idyllic, business-oriented manner, which was extremely problematic… Also, what happens after 9 PM? Maybe we should talk about that. But I’m most frustrated with the administration. The slides posted on the session are missing the #MeeToo slide. Without acknowledgement, they swept the issue under the rug and the glaring omission speaks volumes on their own ethics,” said Michelle Huang (1L).
In a statement to Ultra Vires, Shaughnessy said that he was pleased that people are thinking about his comments. However, he worries that some of his comments might have been misconstrued. At the outset, he was trying to encourage everybody to think about professionalism and ethics, particularly in the context of some societal issues that we’re facing.
Assistant Dean Sara Faherty did respond to a request for comment.
*Names have been changed at the request of the people named. Michelle Huang (1L) contributed reporting to this piece.
This piece was updated on November 5, 2018.
