Unprecedented and Special: Your Local Law Faculty

Today at 2:00 a.m., University of Toronto law graduates received an email from their alma mater, stating that an "unprecedented announcement" would be made at 1:00 p.m. today and inviting them to join the law school "for this special moment" via webcast.

Breathless even by U of T law standards, the email left alumni everywhere in suspense. Would it be the launch of a new global declaration on human rights? An announcement that justice had been obtained for the victims of some legal turpitude? A call for a more accessible and fair judicial system?

The answer is none of the above—at least not yet. The news is a donation of $7.5 million by David Asper in order to establish a new constitutional law centre.

Describing the donation as "unprecedented" in a pre-dawn email may be hyperbolic gushing—cf. similar donations for nursing, business, and international relations—but this is good news for the law school and, we hope, constitutional rights and those who study them. And perhaps one day in the future, it will enable U of T to gush with reason about that new human rights declaration, judicial redress, or other constitutional goody that this centre has helped to achieve.