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An Ontario judge has struck down a deceased doctor’s attempt to set up university scholarships exclusively for white, single and heterosexual students, ruling the unusual stipulations clash with “public policy.”

Dr. Victor Priebe’s trustee should ignore the discriminatory directions his will set out for the proposed bursary, said the Superior Court of Justice decision.

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“Although it is not expressly stated by Dr. Priebe that he subscribed to white supremacist, homophobic and misogynistic views … (the will’s statements) leave no doubt as to Dr. Priebe’s views,” said Justice Alissa Mitchell.

Her decision invoked a little-known legal principle — stemming from an 80-year-old Supreme Court of Canada judgment — that allows courts to quash people’s final wishes if they clearly offend the interests of the state.

People are allowed to be eccentric

A 2014 ruling similarly halted a New Brunswick man’s bequest of $200,000 to an American neo-Nazi group, while a 2009 Nova Scotia judgment blocked a will that said the deceased’s property could be sold only to Anglicans or Presbyterians.