Constance Backhouse was awarded the degree of Doctor of Laws, honoris causa, at the 2 p.m. ceremony on Wednesday, June 12, “in
recognition of outstanding contributions to the human rights advocacy and the advancement of social justice.”
Constance Backhouse is a Distinguished University Professor and the University Research Chair at the University of Ottawa. She teaches in the areas of criminal law, human rights, legal history, and women and
the law. She has published a number of books on legal history, the most recent being Carnal Crimes: Sexual Assault Law in Canada, 1900-1975 which was awarded the Canadian Law and Society Association Book Prize and shortlisted for the Harold Adams Innis Prize. Colour-Coded: A Legal History of Racism in Canada, 1900-1950, was republished in French as De la couleur des lois: Une histoire juridique du racisme au Canada entre 1900 et 1950 and won the Joseph Brant Award.
Her Petticoats and Prejudice: Women and the Law in Nineteenth-Century Canada won the Willard Hurst Prize in American Legal History. She is a co-founder of the Feminist History Society, a non-profit organization dedicated to the writing and publication of a series of books on the history of second-wave Canadian feminism. She holds three honorary doctorate degrees.
In 2012, she was awarded the Queen Elizabeth Il Diamond Jubilee Medal. Her many awards include the Killam Prizes, the Trudeau Fellowship, and the Social Science ; a and Humanities Research Council of Canada Geld Medal. She is also a member of the Order of Canada, as well as the Order of Ontario.