Professor Hester Lester

University of Victoria Faulty of Law

Information as of September 25, 2005

link to her web page click here

Biography from University of Victoria

Hester A. Lessard ( hlessard@uvic.ca ), LL.B. (Dalhousie) 1985, LL.M. (Columbia) 1989. Professor Lessard was appointed as Assistant Professor to the Faculty of Law in 1989 after completing a clerkship for Madame Justice Wilson at the Supreme Court of Canada, a year as a legal advisor at the Canada Labour Relations Board and a two-year stint as an Associate-at-Law at Columbia Law School. She was promoted to Associate Professor in 1994. She teaches Constitutional Law; Feminist Legal Theories; Equality, Human Rights and Social Justice; Law, Legislation and Policy; and Legal Process. She was a past editor of the Canadian Journal of Women and the Law. Her past and current research interests include feminist critiques of constitutional rights, the role of rights under neo liberalism, the treatment of family law issues under the Charter, campus sexual harassment policies, human rights and women-only spaces, and the turn to constitutional and human rights discourses by social movements seeking progressive social change.

Dad's case now a feminist cause celebre

He won a court fight to have his name on his sons' birth certificates but some say the ruling was flawed

Vancouver Sun, by Ian Mulgrew, November 14, 2003; Read More ..

The B.C. Feminist Professor Point of View in the above story

Some scholars and lawyers, for instance, have suggested that in today's world of gay and lesbian families, the high-court ruling in Trociuk is as flawed as the original statute.

.....   A writer and teacher of feminist theory, constitutional law and equality rights, Hester Lessard, feminist professor, is particularly critical of the decision.

She believes the decision is a disheartening endorsement of "biological" concepts of parenthood, "an increasingly fictional creation narrative."

"It legitimates a heterosexual view of the family," she said.

Going Statistical: Mothers, Fathers, and Trociuk v. British Columbia

The Centre for Feminist Legal Studies is pleased to present a talk by Hester Lessard

Thursday, November 13, 2003

12:30-1:30pm

Room 157 Curtis Law Building, UBC

The Talk: The presentation will focus on the framing of inter-parental relations as equality rights in the context of the Supreme Court of Canada's decision in Trociuk. In Trociuk, a father successfully challenged provisions in vital statistics law which give mothers ultimate control over acknowledgement of paternity on birth registrations and, as a consequence, over the surnaming of children. Taking the historic tension between formal and substantive equality as a starting point, Professor Lessard will explore the extent to which this classic opposition is a relation of mutual reinforcement. The Trociuk decision is a disheartening endorsement of formal conceptions of equality and of "biological" conceptions of parenthood which naturalize an explicitly heterosexual and implicitly gendered familial unit. In addition, both formal and substantive versions of equality analysis contribute to the ideological erasure of the role of the state in ordering familial relations through vital statistics law. The erasure is significant. Birth registration and naming rules provide the administrative foundation for implementing the defining and deeply gendered public/private relation between the state and family recently reinvigorated by the entrenchment of neo-liberalism in the political sphere. As well, vital statistics law is central to structuring citizenship within the modern Canadian state. As such, vital statistics law not only reflects the gendered, heterosexist and class dimensions of the state encapsulated in the neo-liberal privatization agenda but also, at particular historical junctures, has manifested its racial and colonialist dimensions as well. The Bio: Professor Hester Lessard teaches feminist theory, constitutional law and equality rights at University of Victoria Faculty of Law. She has written about the interplay between rights discourse under the Charter and familial ideologies, with a particular focus on parental rights and the construction of parenthood.

The Centre for Feminist Legal Studies hosts a weekly Lecture Series during the academic year. Everyone is welcome. For the full schedule, visit our website at http://faculty.law.ubc.ca/cfls or for Read More ..formation email cfls@law.ubc.ca or call (604) 822-6523.

Articles Published in Refereed Journals by female supremacist Professor Hester Lessard0.

Mothers, Fathers and Naming:   Reflections on the Law Equality Framework and Trociuk v. British Columbia (Attorney General)  (2004) Canadian Journal of Women and the Law (forthcoming)

"The Empire of the Lone Mother: Parental Rights, Child Welfare Law and State Restructuring" (2002)   39 Osgoode Hall Law Journal 717.

"Liberty Rights, the Family and Constitutional Politics," (2002) 6 Review of Constitutional Studies 215.

"The Construction of Health Care and the Ideology of the Private in Canadian Constitutional Law", (1993) 2 Annals of Health Law 121 (38 pages).

"Equality and Access to Justice in the Work of Bertha Wilson", (1992) 40 Dalhousie Law Journal 35 (34 pages).

"Relationship, Particularity, and Change: Reflections on R. v. Morgentaler and Feminist Approaches to Liberty", (1991) 36 McGill Law Journal 263 (43 pages).

The Idea of the Private: A Discussion of State Action Doctrine and Separate Sphere Ideology, (1986) 10 Dalhousie Law Journal 107 (32 pages).

Books, Chapters, Monographs

"Developments in Constitutional Law: The 1994-95 Term," (1996) Supreme Court Law Review 81-156 with B. Ryder, D. Schneiderman and M. Young.

"Creation Stories: Social Rights and Canada's Social Contract" in J. Bakan & D. Schneiderman (eds.) Social Justice and the Constitution (Ottawa: Carleton University Press, 1992).

"Creation Stories" also appears in T. McCormack and P. Evans (eds.)   Reconstructing Welfare Society: Women and the Canadian Experience (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1997).

"The Idea of the Private" also appears in Boyle, Mackay, McBride, Yogis (eds.), Charterwatch: Reflections on Equality (Toronto: Carswell 1986).

Other Publications (including book reviews, review essays and reports)

Backlash and the Feminist Judge:   The Work of Justice Claire L'Heureux-Dub in Elizabeth Sheehy, ed., Justice L'Heureux-Dub forthcoming. (12 manuscript pages)

Review of Law as a Gendering Practice, Chunn & Lacombe (eds.), (2001) 35 U.B.C Law Review 199. (6 pages)

"Farce or Tragedy?:   Judicial Backlash and Justice McClung,"   (1999) Constitutional Forum 65. (7 pages)

Review of Abortion, Conscience & Democracyby Mark MacGuigan for Canadian Public Policy (December, 1995).

"Siberian Tigers and Exotic Birds: Ronald Dworkin's Map of the Sacred", (1994) 17 Dalhousie Law Journal 222 (40 pages).

"Tribute to Bertha Wilson", (1992) 1 Canadian Labour Law Journalv (2 pages).

"Speaking/Listening: A Review of At the Boundaries of Law, Fineman & Thomadsen (eds.):, (1992) 7 Canadian Journal of Law and Society 163 (11 pages).

Review of Feminist Legal Theory, Bartlett & Kennedy (eds.), 1992Women and Politics.

Works in Progress

Academic Equity, Anti-Harassment Policies, and Backlash, chapter for book funded by S.S.H.R.C. Strategic Grants Program.

The Culture of Gender:  A Study of Equality Challenges to Women-Only Spaces

THE UNIVERSITY OF VICTORIA JANUARY 22, 1999

Law profs to speak on human rights and family conflict

Disputes and conflicts between family members, while still frequently considered private matters, have long been the territory of lawyers and courts. It's the language surrounding the resolution of these cases that has changed, says UVic law professor Hester Lessard.

She will discuss an increasing tendency to frame family conflicts in the context of human rights in "The Family, Fundamental Rights, and Constitutional Values" on

Jan. 26 at 7:30 p.m. in the 1996 Classroom Building, room C103. This provost's UVic faculty series presentation is free and open to the public, although seating is limited.

"In custody cases, instead of parents arguing that denial of access is unfair, they're arguing that a fundamental issue of human rights is at stake," says Lessard. "Family court judges used to make decisions based on what they considered to be in the best interests of the child. Now they must consider the human rights implications as well."

Lessard says the entrenchment of the Canadian Charter of Rights in 1982 marked the beginning of a shift into the language of rights on a wide range of social and political issues, including those concerning familial relationships. Her presentation will examine how judges are responding to demands from litigants to describe familial issues in terms of fundamental constitutional values. She'll discuss what their judgments say about the way in which concepts of the family fit within judicial notions of the Canadian constitutional order, and the extent to which these views resonate with larger structural changes and broader concerns about social and economic policy.

Lessard notes that the convergence of family and constitutional law does not present a unified picture. In some areas, the charter is being used to challenge traditional notions of the family and to pluralize and democratize the family. In other areas, the charter is being invoked to reinforce conservative family values and conceptions of family relationships.