Refugee board disputes Professor Sean Rehaag's study on bias and refugee boards

Asylum rejection rates have no bearing in the quality and consistency of decisions made by adjudicators, says Canada’s refugee board, reported the Toronto Star March 4: In fact, the board insists that each decision must be examined on a case-by-case basis. “Statistics on the acceptance and rejection rates of individual IRB members who determine refugee […]

Osgoode Professor Sean Rehaag's study raises concerns about bias on refugee board

If you were a refugee seeking protection in Canada, you wouldn’t want to cross the path of David McBean, wrote the Toronto Star March 4, in a story about a new York study that shows evidence of bias among different adjudicators on the Immigration & Refugee Board (IRB) of Canada: According to an analysis of […]

Professor Sheila Cavanagh on Toronto's unisex washroom trend

Sheila Cavanagh, professor of sociology at York University [Faculty of Liberal Arts & Professional Studies], recently published a book called Queering Bathrooms: Gender, Sexuality, and the Hygienic Imagination, in which transgendered and other queer interviewees discuss the difficulties that divided bathrooms present, wrote the Toronto Star March 4: The evolution of bathroom-stall signage — from […]

LA Times cites Professor Ellen Bialystok in bilingualism story

Neuroscience researchers are increasingly coming to a consensus that bilingualism has many positive consequences for the brain, wrote the Los Angeles Times Feb. 26, in story that also appeared in the Chicago Tribune and on numerous US television news websites. Several such researchers travelled to this month’s annual meeting of the American Association for the […]

Professor Joel Lexchin co-authors study on free journals and costly or problematic drugs

Medical publications distributed freely to health professionals often promote drugs that are costly or have potential problems, says a new study warning that such practices could influence which drugs doctors prescribe, wrote The Globe and Mail Feb. 28: Unlike medical publications that require paid subscriptions, free journals get most or all of their funding from […]

Watch Raccoon Nation documentary featuring two York researchers on CBC's website

CBC's The Nature of Things aired its Raccoon Nation documentary Feb. 24, featuring York psychology and biology Professor Suzanne MacDonald and PhD student Marc Dupuis-Desormeaux: The researchers tagged the raccoons with GPS collars to log their travels throughout the city, recording them at up to 1,500 points over six weeks. They found that the raccoons […]

Professor Ellen Bialystok's report on Alzheimer's and bilingualism makes world headlines

Mastering a second language can pump up your brain in ways that seem to delay getting Alzheimer's disease later on, scientists said Friday, wrote The Associated Press and The Canadian Press Feb. 18 [via sympatico.ca], in a story that was featured in reports by more than 300 newspapers, television stations and radio stations around the […]

Professor Roger Keil says multiculturalism more successful in Canada than Europe

Declarations by European leaders that multiculturalism is a failure are not applicable to York Region, academics and immigration advocates said, wrote the Aurora Banner, Feb. 18: The dialogue sparked by the leaders mystifies York University City Institute director Roger Keil, himself a newcomer from his native Germany in the 1990s. “I’m puzzled (that) the national […]

Professor Alan Young calls appeal of prostitution-decriminalization ruling ‘knee-jerk’

Last September, Justice Susan Himel of the Ontario Superior Court of Justice struck down three provisions in Canada's Criminal Code: living off the avails of prostitution; keeping a common bawdy house; and communicating in a public place for the purpose of engaging in prostitution, reported the Kingston Whig-Standard Feb. 18, in a series examining the […]

York study of parents and loss receives international attention

One of the toughest challenges a parent faces when a child dies is to learn how to parent the surviving children, and the task begins immediately, according to York University psychology Professor Stephen Fleming, wrote the Times of India and other newspapers and websites in the US and South Asia Feb. 16: From the moment […]