Please note that the titles and descriptions that accompany each Trailblazers photograph are dated to the launch of the exhibit, March 2006, and will not be updated.
"It never entered my mind to let my disability get in the way of my professional goals and ambitions. It's just a part of who I am - like the colour of my hair."
Naomi Overend '85
Discipline Counsel, Law Society of Upper Canada; Former Counsel, Ontario Human Rights Commission
From a very early age, Naomi Overend has always believed in her own potential, despite an accident at age 11 which left her with a permanent disability. It's other people, she says, who saw only stereotypes and limitations rather than the person as a whole. Even so, Naomi's spirit was tested at times, including the early days of law school. She recalls a lonely and isolating first year, faced with inaccessible buildings and, in particular, inaccessible classrooms. Despite these challenges, Naomi completed law school, the first person in the Faculty's history to do so in a wheelchair, and went on to a successful career with the Ontario Human Rights Commission and more recently the Law Society of Upper Canada. Over the past two decades she has advocated on behalf of disadvantaged persons, winning landmark cases on family and marital status, race, sexual harassment and accessibility issues. She has accomplished this while raising two children with her partner of 27 years. Despite her many accomplishments and successes, Naomi sees nothing extraordinary about what she has achieved.
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