Juanita Westmoreland-Traoré

Juanita Westmoreland-Traore, OQ (born March 10, 1942)^[1] is the first black judge in the history of Quebec.^[2] She is also the first black dean of a law school (the University of Windsor Faculty of Law) in Canada's history.^[2]

Westmoreland-Traoré was born in Verdun, now part of Montreal, Quebec, in 1942, the daughter of immigrants from Guyana.^[2][3] She studied at Marianopolis College, and subsequently obtained a law degree from the Université de Montréal (1966) and a doctorate from the University of Paris.^[1][2]

She was called to the Quebec Bar in 1969,^[3] and began practising law in 1970 with the law firm of Mergler, Melançon.^[1][2] She has also been a member of the Ontario Bar since 1997.^[3] During the 1970s, Westmoreland-Traoré taught at the Université de Montréal from 1972 to 1976,^[4] and from 1976 to 1991 at the Université du Québec à Montréal.^[3] In 1990, Westmoreland-Traoré was an arbitrator to the Human Rights Tribunal of Quebec.^[4] Westmoreland-Traoré was also a member of the Office de protection des consommateurs du Québec from 1979 to 1983.^[1] From 1983 to 1985, she was a Commissioner for the Canadian Human Rights Commission. In 1985, she became the first chair of Quebec's Council on Cultural Communities and Immigration.^[2][4]

From 1991 to 1995, she was Employment Equity Commissioner of Ontario.^[3] In this role, she set up support to monitor the introduction of employment equity planning to seventeen thousand Ontario businesses.^[4] From 1996 to 1999 she was the dean of the University of Windsor's law faculty.^[2] She was appointed a Judge of the Court of Quebec for the District of Montreal in 1999.^[3]

In 1991, she was made an Officer of the National Order of Quebec.^[1] Westmoreland-Traoré has received other awards, including from Canadian Jewish Congress, the Montreal Association of Black Business Persons and Professionals, and the Canadian Bar Association.^[3] In 2008, she was awarded the Quebec Human Rights Commission's Rights and Liberties Prize for her career-long fight against discrimination. ^[3] In 2021, she received the Medal of the Barreau de Montréal.^[5]

In March 2013, Université du Québec à Montréal's Département des sciences juridiques founded the Juanita Westmoreland-Traoré scholarship.^[6] The $3000 scholarship is to be awarded annually to a single undergraduate law student who uses their training to promote human rights, social justice and equality.^[6] Sameer Zuberi, a human rights advocate of ten years, was the bursary's first recipient in April 2014.^[7][8]

Westmoreland-Traoré received honorary doctorates from University of Ottawa in 1993, Université du Québec à Montréal in 2001, and McGill University in 2018.^[4][9]

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