CONNIE BACKHOUSE

My partner of 20 years is also a law professor, Bruce Feldthusen, who is now the Dean of Law at Ottawa. We have two children: Diana (age 18 and in first year at Queenís) and Mark (age 16, in high school in Ottawa).

One of the best parts of academic life is sabbaticals, and we have managed to take a number of wonderful ones: Berkeley, Tucson, San Diego, and Perth (Western Australia).

I have written a number of books: Petticoats and Prejudice: Women and Law in Nineteenth-Century Canada, Colour-Coded: A Legal History of Racism in Canadian Law, 1900-1950; The Secret Oppression: Sexual Harassment of Working Women (co-authored with Leah Cohen); and Challenging Times: The Womenís Movement in Canada and the United States (co-edited with David H. Flaherty).

I teach courses on human rights, criminal law, gender and race. I do a great deal of public speaking, as well as some adjudication and mediation for human rights tribunals. One of the most fascinating things I have done was to work as an adjudicator of compensation claims for former residents of the Grandview Training School for Girls. I also am deeply involved with the feminist communities in London, Ontario and Ottawa.