After graduating from Harvard Law School, it soon became clear to Professor Bill Black that he would rather teach law than practice it, and the Allard School of Law was the ideal place to do so.
“I once had an interview with a big, corporate law firm in Seattle … I remember thinking at the time, ‘I’m not sure I can hold out the hour of the interview, much less 20 years,’” he said. “Perhaps if I had interviewed with a firm that had focused on my areas of interest, I would have had a different response. But I have never regretted choosing an academic career.”
“I grew up in Seattle, and I loved the geography of the Northwest, but this was the Vietnam era, and I was not enamoured with U.S. foreign policy, so I got to keep my geography and change countries, and that was perfect.”
Professor Black joined the Allard School of Law in 1970 as an Assistant Professor and was promoted to Associate Professor in 1975, then Professor in 1998.
His research interests pivot around Human Rights Reform, Equality Rights, and Mediation and other Dispute Resolution within Human Rights Agencies.
Professor Black was a Visiting Professor and Director of the University of Ottawa's Human Rights Research and Education Centre from 1989 to 1993 and led a research project on human rights for the B.C. government in 1994.
In 1999, he was part of an independent panel that was asked to conduct the first comprehensive review of the Canadian Human Rights Act since it was passed in 1977.
Professor Black has written on the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, emphasizing equality rights. He has also written on various aspects of human rights, including the human rights process, employment equity and systemic discrimination.
He became a Professor Emeritus in 2005.