After about nine hours of debate Thursday, the Law Society of Ontario is no closer to deciding the fate of one of its key diversity initiatives.

At issue is the “statement of principles” (SOP), a requirement from the legal regulator that every lawyer and paralegal adopt a statement (which they can write themselves) that acknowledges their “obligation to promote equality, diversity and inclusion.”

The requirement was one of 13 recommendations made in 2016 by the law society’s working group on challenges faced by racialized licensees, in a bid to tackle what it found was systemic racism in the legal profession.

The requirement quickly drew the ire of some lawyers, who argued the requirement for such a statement is compelled speech and unconstitutional.

That criticism spilled over into this year’s law society board of directors’ election, in which the slate, known as StopSOP, was victorious in April, taking 22 of the 40 lawyer seats on the board. The slate campaigned on striking down the statement of principles.

Thursday’s law society board meeting kicked off with a motion by StopSOP board member Murray Klippenstein to repeal the statement of principles.

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“I recall the shock I felt, the disbelief when I saw I was going to be compelled, coerced, by force of law to publicly promulgate principles that someone else had dictated to me,” Klippenstein said at the meeting.

On the table was also a motion from board member Joe Groia to amend Klippenstein’s motion to encourage lawyers and paralegals to voluntarily adopt a statement of principles.

Groia had proposed to the previous board in 2017 that licensees be allowed an exemption if they had a “conscientious objection” to the requirement. His proposal failed in a 38-16 vote.

“Today, we should be really focused on what we will do tomorrow to encourage equity, diversity and inclusion,” Groia told the board Thursday.

But, after hours of wrangling over motions and amendments (some were voted down, rulings appealed, motions withdrawn, some votes resulting in ties), the meeting ended with effectively both motions still on the table.

(Aside from the 40 lawyer seats, there are also five paralegal seats and eight lay benchers appointed by the provincial government.)

Treasurer Malcolm Mercer, the elected head of the organization who was re-elected to a second term earlier in the morning, decided to adjourn the meeting around 6:30 p.m. and push the matter over to a special session in July.

That means that, for now, the statement of principles requirement remains mandatory.

“What the public should recognize is that this question is one that has fundamentally divided convocation (the board) and we worked long and hard to find a way through and another day we will find a way through,” Mercer told the Star afterward, when asked what kind of message Thursday’s meeting could send the public about the legal profession’s ability to govern itself.

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The working group that recommended the statement of principles requirement spent four years studying the challenges faced by racialized licensees and holding consultations, concluding that the challenges “are both longstanding and significant.”

Atrisha Lewis, a new board member and vocal supporter of the statement of principles, told the board Thursday that combatting racism within the profession and ensuring that there’s a diverse bar is important to the public interest.

“To those who think this is about freedom of expression, don’t be fooled,” Lewis told the board. “This is about denying the existence of racism.”