Lacy CartyAlumna Lacy Carty, 2022 recipient of the overall OHREA Award.

Award recognizes student and professional advocate

As legal counsel for the Windsor-Essex Children’s Aid Society, Lacy Carty (MSW and JD 2020) is employing skills for advocacy she honed while a student of law and social work at the University of Windsor.

She founded two student groups: VOICES Speaking Out and Standing Up, and Making It Awkward: Challenging Anti-Black Racism, and has continued that work in her professional career. Carty’s commitment to advancing a culture of diversity and inclusion at the University of Windsor — and ongoing in the community — earned her the 2022 overall OHREA Award from the Office of Human Rights, Equity, and Accessibility.

“I thought it was important not only community voices to be recognized but student voices more particularly,” Carty says. “One voice can make a difference, but multiple voices make changes.”

She is proud of the work she and her fellow activists did to raise awareness of issues of inequity.

“We weren’t afraid to bring these things out and have a conversation,” she recalls. “That was the main point: to have a dialogue.”

Hear more from Carty in a video on her award:

This is the fifth and final entry in a series recognizing recipients of the 2022 OHREA awards.

See a program with information on each of the awards and the 2022 recipients on the OHREA website.