Catherine Frazee was awarded the degree of Doctor of Laws, honoris causa, at the 2:00 p.m. ceremony on Wednesday, June 13, “in recognition of her extraordinary leadership as a writer, an educator, an activist and an advocate for the promotion and inclusion of disability studies, art, culture and action in Canada.”
Frazee is professor emerita at Ryerson University, where she served as professor of distinction and co director of the RBC-Ryerson Institute for Disability Studies. Research and Education prior to her retirement in 2010. She was the chief commissioner of the Ontario Human Rights Commission from 1989 to 1992.
Frazee’s primary area of focus in recent years has been the exploration of cultural work grounded in the experience of disability, the illumination of ableist habits of heart embedded in our social ethos and, in direct response, the reframing of disability as a distinct and resilient social identity.
She has provided expert testimony before federal and provincial courts on human rights and disability disadvantage and has contributed actively to Supreme Court of Canada interventions of strategic concern to disabled Canadians, most recently in relation to legalizing euthanasia and assisted suicide.
Frazee has published extensively on human rights, precarious citizenship and the activist resistance of disabled people. She has received honorary degrees from Dalhousie University, the University of New Brunswick and McMaster University, and was appointed an officer of the Order of Canada in 2014 for “her advancement of the rights of persons with disabilities and as an advocate for social justice.”