Letter From the Editor

R. v. Jack LeCasse

Dissenting opinion by Andrew Monkhouse, Co-Editor in Chief

This is in reference to the 'article' by Jack LeCasse previous. In my opinion such a piece ought not to be printed in the Obiter or at the very least should have the actual name of law student who wrote it attached to it. The article is not germain and there is no good reason as to why it should be rendered anonymous.

The main issue with the article is that it is a short story, one strikingly similar to that which you would be forced to read of a fellow student in grade 8 English class. The Obiter Dicta is not a collection of short stories (poorly written or not). The front cover states that we are 'The Definitive Source for Osgoode News'. So what is 'osgoode news'? It is either law-school or law related (most often written by law students) or alternatively things which would be interesting for law students, preferably with a law student or Osgoode spin (like sports, music and movie reviews).

The idea is that our readership is very specific. The 1000 law students, a few of our sponsors and 1-2 pre-osgoode kids who are interested (ok, I admit it, I loved the obiter before I came here). Running articles that are irrelevant takes away from the paper, costs money for the space, and diminishes what the 'image' of the paper as 'The Definitive Source for Osgoode News'.

The paper generally has a number of sections. Editorials, letters to the editor, features, arts & Culture, L&L, Sports, Osgoode News and Opinions. They are meaningfully divided this way on our website. None of these categories are 'short stories'. We do not print the junk mail that people email to the Obiter account. The only thing that separates this from that is that it was written by a law student.

A law student who will not even put his own name to it. That is how much faith he has in it. The exceptions to the rule of 'your name goes on it' in the past have generally been where something would be harmful to the student and it being written was for the good of our community. For instance an expose on law firm hiring practices, an attack on the administration's policies or sex articles. That being said I have put my name on all three of the above. This 'article' certainly is none of the above.

I don't have an issue with people writing short stories but you have short story digests, the internet, blogs, and a million other ways to get them out to people who might like them. It shouldn't be in the Obiter.

And for those reasons I dissent from Jenn and Cassie, my Co-Editors-in-Chief, on this issue.

I would order the article not to be included in the paper and the author be advised to distribute through more appropriate channels. In the alternative I would order that the author be asked to put his real name on the article.