About the Author

• Author: Natasha Bakht
• Pages: 251-251

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ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  is a full professor

of law at the University of Ottawa

and the Shirley Greenberg Chair for

Women and the Legal Profession.

She has taught courses in family

law; criminal law; children and the

law; the law and policy of multi-

culturalism; and women, religion,

and law. She was called to the bar

of Ontario in  and served as a

law clerk to Justice Louise Arbour at

the Supreme Court of Canada. Her

legal scholarship explores the inter-

section between religious freedom

and women’s equality. She served as

the English language editor-in-chief of the Canadian Journal of Women and

the Law from  to . Natasha’s legal activism includes involvement

with the National Association of Women and the Law and the Women’s

Legal Education and Action Fund (LEAF). She was named one of the

top f‌ifty people in city by Ottawa Life Magazine (), received a Femmy

Award by International Women’s Day Ottawa for being a thought leader

in the National Capital Region (), and received the South Asian Bar

Association’s Legal Excellence Award ().

Her research on the niqab analyzes the unwarranted popular panic

concerning Muslim women who cover their faces and explores systemic

barriers to inclusion perpetuated by Canada’s legal and political system.

She has been cited by the Supreme Court of Canada in the case of R v NS,

 SCC , which involved a niqab-wearing sexual assault complain-

ant. Together with her friend and colleague Lynda Collins, she stretched

the legal boundaries of family by becoming legal co-mothers of their

son, Elaan, though they are not in a conjugal relationship. She is also an

award-winning dancer and choreographer.