Contributor Biography
Professor Aylward is a law professor at Dalhousie Law School (now the Schulich School of Law) where she teaches Criminal Law, General Jurisprudence, and Alternative Dispute Resolution. She obtained her Bachelor of Laws (LL.B) from Dalhousie law School and her Masters of Laws (LL.M) from Dalhousie Law School. She is the longest serving past Director of the Indigenous Black and Mi’kmaq Programme at Dalhousie Law School serving ten years in this position. She has also served as the Education Equity Officer at the University of Ottawa, Faculty of Law, Common Law Section.
Professor Aylward is the only African Nova Scotian to be appointed Associate Professor at Dalhousie Law School faculty of Law and the only African Nova Scotian to be granted tenure. Her areas of research include Criminal Law, Human Rights and Critical Race Theory.
She has received a number of awards and recognition for public service and is a recipient of the Harry Jerome Award for Professional Excellence – a national award given by the Black Business and Professional Association of Ontario and IBM Canada Ltd. to honour "outstanding members of the African Canadian Community". The award is named after Black athlete Harry Jerome, who represented Canada in three Olympics and two Pan American and Commonwealth Games. He set six world records and received the Order of Canada in 1971.
Professor Aylward is the author of several academic articles on Affirmative Action and Critical Race Theory and was part of the team of lawyers who took the case of R.D.S. v The Queen (a case involving race and s. 15 of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms) before the Supreme Court of Canada. She is also the author of the only Canadian book on Critical Race Theory, Canadian Critical Race Theory: Racism and the Law, 1999, Halifax, Fernwood Publishing.
She is a past Commissioner of the Nova Scotia Human Rights Commission and of the Nova Scotia Police Commission. She is currently writing a book entitled The Mississippi of the North: Growing up Black in Nova Scotia.
