A response to the “Marcus McCann” Tweet
I write this as someone who has felt pressured to not practice law in less lucrative areas. Carrying over $100,000 in debt will put that pressure on a person, and the law school diminishes itself by not explicitly acknowledging this. While the law school states that it is committed to access to justice, it rings hollow when they continue to squeeze students tighter and tighter financially. The law school is by no means the only party with a role to play in addressing the access to justice crisis. But when the law school actively takes steps to quash dissent on this issue, it demonstrates just how little it actually cares about ensuring equitable access to legal representation.
On Friday October 25, Marcus McCann, a graduate of the law school and associate at Symes Street & Millard LLP, posted a troubling tweet. The tweet detailed a September 2015 email exchange between Assistant Dean Alexis Archbold and Lucianna Ciccocioppo, then Director of External Relations for the law school. McCann obtained these communications via an “access to information” request. The exchange is with regards to a speech that McCann delivered at an alumni event for the Class of 1975.
In his speech, McCann detailed the bleak gap between tuition and financial aid. Specifically, he detailed how the gap between financial aid and tuition pressures students towards large-firm private practice and away from less remunerative but no less worthy practices. He detailed how our tuition is linked to the school’s lack of diversity. Assistant Dean Archbold and Ciccocioppo painted the speech as disingenuous and designed to turn people off of donating. In the last email in the chain, Assistant Dean Archbold said: “The key people on staff should be aware of his name and flag it if they see him/see his name on invite lists.”
As of press time, Assistant Dean Archbold did not respond to a request for comment.
In a later tweet, McCann stated that he has been invited back to the school twice since to discuss his role in intervening in the Trinity Western case. Notwithstanding that we do not know how much of an impact McCann’s flagging has had on his subsequent interactions with the law school, this exchange should trouble you.
McCann spoke out against how disproportionate our tuition is compared to other law schools in the country, and, in response to this, the school’s administration thought it prudent to take steps to potentially curtail McCann’s speaking out. This is disturbing. I am not unsympathetic to the law school. I understand that budgetary matters are in large part influenced by Simcoe Hall rather than the Office of the Dean. The law school may well find it objectionable that people would use their platform to speak about the impacts of tuition approaching $40,000. But it should not lie in the mouth of the law school to attempt to blacklist those who would raise their concerns with the current state of affairs.
If there is a blacklist of people who are barred from alumni event invitations and the like, then I hope that I am on it. As it currently stands, I have no intention of donating to the law school unless there is a drastic change in the amount of tuition demanded of students. I will not shy away from saying that—and I would invite others to do the same. If the school intends to flag anyone who objects to our tuition, the blacklist and our alumni base should be one and the same.
