Lesley A. Jacobs

Education and career Jacobs earned his Bachelor of Arts with a Gold Medal in 1985 and Master of Arts in 1986 in Political Science and Philosophy from the University of Western Ontario. He completed his Doctor of Philosophy (DPhil) in Politics at the University of Oxford in 1990 under the supervision of political philosopher Gerald A. Cohen, with mentorship from legal scholars Ronald Dworkin and Geoffrey Marshall.

Jacobs began his academic career as a lecturer at Magdalen College, Oxford from 1989 to 1990, followed by appointments at the University of British Columbia from 1990 to 1993 and York University from 1993 to 2019.

Since 2019, Jacobs is a Vice-President of Research and Innovation at Ontario Tech University.

He is a corporate director for three technology firms and contributes to IAEA initiatives on nuclear energy governance.

Research Jacobs’ scholarship bridges legal theory, data science, and public policy. He developed race data collection frameworks embedded in Ontario’s Anti-Racism Act, 2017, and Nova Scotia's Dismantling Racism and Hate Act, 2022. His empirical studies on racial profiling in policing, including landmark projects with the Ottawa, Peel, and Toronto police services, have informed Canadian jurisprudence and human rights policy.

He pioneered using randomized control trials (RCTs) in legal services research through collaborations with Community Legal Education Ontario (CLEO). His research has been cited in Supreme Court decisions, including Ligue des Noirs du Québec v. City of Montréal (2024) and Attorney General of Quebec v. Luamba (2024).

Selected publications

Books

Journal articles and book Chapters