Ruth Goba Announced as Executive Director of BLAC

The Board of the Black Legal Action Centre (BLAC) is pleased to announce Ruth Goba as the Executive Director of BLAC.

​Ruth graduated from Osgoode Hall Law School in 2000 and was called to the Bar in 2002. After law school, Ruth worked abroad for an international NGO that focused on economic and social rights and for the United Nations Special Rapporteur on Housing. She later completed her articles of clerkship at ARCH Disability Law Centre. She worked in private practice as a human rights lawyer and then moved to the Centre for Equality Rights in Accommodation, where she was Executive Director from 2007 to 2009. Ruth was a Commissioner with the Ontario Human Rights Commission (OHRC) for 11 years and in February 2015 was named Interim Chief Commissioner. In 2016, she was cross-appointed to the board of the Human Rights Legal Support Centre and in 2017 was appointed as a mediator and adjudicator with the Human Rights Tribunal of Ontario.

Ruth has taught at Ryerson University, was on the legal committee of the Women’s Legal Education and Action Fund (LEAF) and the board of the National Association of Women and the Law. She was also appointed to the Provincial/Territorial Expert Panel on Physician-Assisted Dying.  Her work has taken her to India, Kenya and Geneva.  She and her husband live in Toronto with their three young daughters.