Collection Coll. 05 - Legal Challenge Collection

Supreme Court of Canada (March - April 2000)

Title and statement of responsibility area

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Legal Challenge Collection

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  • Multiple media

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CA TWU Coll. 05

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Physical description

1.46 m of textual records and other material

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Archival description area

Name of creator

(1982 -)

Administrative history

The TWU Archives was informally established in 1982, on the strength of grant funding acquired by Library Director David Twiest, who began to accummulate school records, as well as the archival records of Robert N. Thompson; in 1982-1983 he hired a contract archivist to begin to manage these materials.

For some years, very little work was accomplished, owing to a lack of funding.
In 1988, Ted Goshulak accepted the position of reference librarian; his responsibilities included general oversight of the archives department, which was by now established as part of the library.
In 1994 Ms Stopforth was hired to work on a part-time basis as reference librarian and archivist. Between 1995 and 2014, Stopforth successfully applied for over $47,000 in provincial and federal grant funding, which was applied to salaries, shelving, supplies, and computer hardware and software. Student assistants were hired with funding from the Work Studies Program, a provincial program that was cut ca. 2002. Stopforth resigned from this position in 2019. In February 2019, Ms. Krause succeeded as University Archivist and Assistant Librarian.

Custodial history

All individuals and departments listed in the series descriptions transferred their records to the TWU Archives in fall of 2001, upon the recommendation of Dr. Allan Hedberg, former member of the TWU Board of Governors; a paper written by Harro Van Brummelen with Kevin Sawatsky was donated in 2002

Scope and content

In 1985, the four-year teacher education degree program was launched at Trinity Western University (TWU); graduates from TWU's program had to attend Simon Fraser University for their fifth and final year. TWU applied to the British Columbia College of Teachers (BCCT) to offer the required certification year in its own right in January of 1995. In June, 1996, the BCCT ignored the recommendation of its own committee and rejected TWU's application, citing the TWU community standards, which require students to refrain from extramarital sex, including homosexual behavior. The BCCT argued that students graduating from TWU's teacher education program would introduce an unwelcome bias to the public school classroom. TWU challenged the BCCT's decision by filing suit in the Supreme Court of British Columbia in May 1997. On September 12th of that year, the Court ordered that the BCCT approve TWU's teacher education program, stating that there was no evidence of intolerance amongst TWU-trained teachers. The BCCT appealed the decision, but on December 30th, 1998, the British Columbia Court of Appeal upheld the earlier decision. The BCCT appealed this ruling to the Supreme Court of Canada, which agreed on December 9th, 1999, to hear the case. In November of 2000, both sides presented their arguments before the Court, and on May 17th, 2001, the Supreme Court of Canada ruled in favour of Trinity Western University.

This Collection consists of records created or acquired by TWU administrators, faculty and staff, documenting the court case between the BCCT and TWU pertaining to the University's teacher education program. Types of records included in the collection include minutes of meetings, correspondence, news releases and newspaper clippings, reports, and copies of official court documents.
Series within the collection include:
Neil Snider (01)
Guy Saffold (02)
Glen Forrester (03)
Joy McCullough (04)
Media and Publications Department (05)
Court Documents (06)
Newspaper Clippings (07)
Development Department (08)
Harro Van Brummelen (09)

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Associated materials

  • Related Material: In the fall of 2001, five Public History students embarked on an Oral History Interview assignment; they were required to interview Dr. Guy Saffold, Mr. Kevin Sawatsky, and Dr. Harro Van Brummelen regarding their involvement in the Legal Challenge process. The resulting audio recordings and transcripts are available to researchers. See Coll. 2 Aud. 272, 273, and 274 for these recordings, and Fonds 41 for transcripts of these recordings. Electronic copies are linked to their respective recordings in the archives database, online. Please see archival staff for more information.
  • See also the archives' Newspaper Clippings Collection
  • Note that audio visual materials are physically filed with the archives AV Collection.

Related materials

Accruals

Alpha-numeric designations

6562

Physical description

Actual physical extent of textual records inside boxes is 1.22 m

Collection also includes 0.30 m of binders

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April 04, 2002<br/>October 25, 2012<br/>Thursday, October 25, 2012 2:23:00 PM by SylviaS<br/>Friday, January 06, 2012 12:27:23 PM by SylviaS<br/>Friday, January 11, 2008 11:30:59 AM by Keharn.Yawnghwe<br/>Wednesday, July 11, 2007 3:25:16 PM by SylviaS<br/>Saturday, April 30, 2005 11:11:21 AM by SylviaS<br/>Wednesday, February 18, 2004 9:29:09 PM by SylviaS<br/>Saturday, November 02, 2002 1:47:56 PM by SylviaS<br/>Tuesday, October 29, 2002 9:52:58 PM by SylviaS<br/>Thursday, September 19, 2002 11:59:46 AM by SylviaS<br/>Thursday, September 19, 2002 11:57:01 AM by SylviaS<br/>Wednesday, September 18, 2002 8:14:45 PM by SylviaS<br/>04/05/2002 12:23:11 PM by SylviaS<br/>04/04/2002 05:06:47 PM by SylviaS<br/>02/2002 Darren Friesen

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