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In a jam-packed hearing room that sometimes sounded like a church, with the audience murmuring “Uh huh” or “That’s right” in response and once bursting into applause, a panel of the Ontario Judicial Council Friday began struggling with the question of what judges can and can’t do in the modern world.

It is akin to wrestling with Jello, because, as a former colleague, Ontario Superior Court Judge Jill Copeland, wrote in a letter of support for Donald McLeod, “… often there is not a bright line that demarcates what is appropriate judicial activity outside the courtroom, and what is not.” That may hold particularly true for judges from minority communities — McLeod, born to a single mother in subsidized housing in downtown Toronto and Scarborough, is one of a few black faces on the bench — and who may feel acute responsibilities to them.

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As an expert witness, Dr. Wendell Adjetey later testified that for a man like McLeod to have risen so high, the obligation to “pay it back” with community involvement is not a choice. “This is the burden and gift of blackness,” Adjetey said. “If you benefitted … you must pay it forward” with grace.