Sadia Masud receives the Hon. Cecilia Johnstone Equality award

For her dedication to social causes and her already lengthy history of community service and legal advocacy, University of Alberta Faculty of Law student Sadia Masud has been recognized with a prestigious award. 

At the faculty’s graduation banquet on March 9, the third-year student was presented with the Hon. Cecilia Johnstone Equality Award.

Masud has been an active member of many community organizations both on and off campus. Notably, she founded the Muslim Law Students' Association, all while juggling her studies.

The Hon. Cecilia Johnstone Equality Award is presented each year to a graduating law student who has made meaningful contributions to the study and practice of law and the community writ large. 

"2024 marks a special year for the Cecilia Johnstone Equality Award. Originally endowed in 2009, as of this year, the award will have been in place for 15 years,” says Dean Barabara Billingsley. “Additionally, the award honours the legacy of Cecilia Johnstone, who, as a member of the Class of 1974, graduated from the Faculty of Law fifty years ago this year.”

“It is with great appreciation for the donors of this award and for Cecilia Johnstone's legacy as a champion of equality rights, that the Faculty of Law is able to annually recognize a graduating student who has made an outstanding contribution to equality issues in the community or at the law faculty. It is a pleasure to see another worthy student recognized with the award this year."

Masud says she was initially surprised — though certainly happy — that she won the award. There are many amazing people at the Faculty of Law doing vital work in the community and with groups on campus, such as the Indigenous Law Students’ Association and the Black Law Students’ Association, among others, she says. As such, Masud was “incredibly grateful” to be selected.

“First of all, it’s a real honour to see our efforts toward our community recognized. But it was also great for the faculty and other students to encourage us so much,” she says. 

‘Find their voice’

Masud began an undergraduate degree in the U of A’s Department of Political Science. After graduating in 2019, she took a year off during the COVID-19 pandemic before being accepted to the Faculty of Law in 2021 with the goal of ultimately working in immigration and refugee and human rights law. 

Outside the classroom, Masud has been actively engaged in various roles. She sat on the Faculty’s Student Appeals Committee, focusing on fair and empathetic decision-making. Throughout law school, she's also been a committed student caseworker with Student Legal Services, working on civil, immigration, and family law files. 

Masud has also been busy with organizations such as the National Council of Canadian Muslims and the Canadian Muslim Lawyers Association Alberta Chapter. Most notably, she met with members of the provincial government to advocate for an anti-Islamophobia strategy in Alberta, which recently received bipartisan support. Currently, she is excited to be working with Edmonton Police Services (EPS) to help EPS serve our “beautifully diverse communities” better.

In particular, her work with the group Edmonton Refugee Volunteers sticks out in Masud’s mind. Masud has worked with the organization since 2016, and she and her peers support newly arrived Canadians establish themselves, and thrive, in the city. 

“There can be a lot of obstacles to navigate for refugees. Helping them navigate them and hearing their stories — this really sticks out to me.”

In the winter term of 2021, she co-founded the Muslim Law Students' Association (MLSA), which works to provide interfaith peer support and help Muslim students succeed in their legal studies.

Masud saw a valuable opportunity to establish the group. She recalls that setting up a student group takes a lot of work, particularly on the administrative side, and that this can be a bit tricky while pursuing full-time studies. However, Faculty members and students were incredibly supportive, she says. 

The Faculty of Law has numerous student groups, meaning there are many opportunities for tomorrow’s lawyers to “find their own voice,” at the school, she says. Plus, the active and vibrant student groups at the Faculty regularly support each other, something that helped Masud start the MLSA. While Masud is close to graduating, she hopes the MLSA continues to help students going into the future. 

“It's a huge privilege to be able to kind of facilitate these things for incoming students as well,” she says. “Community is everything and I can’t thank my community enough.” 

She says that her future career has and will benefit from both her time at the Faculty of Law and receiving the Hon. Cecilia Johnstone Equality Award. For Masud, it’s important that a portion of this award go towards her scholarship fund — the Zaman Scholarship Fund, which she started in her second year of law school. She established this scholarship to support students in Chaouat, Tunisia, and Dhaka, Bangladesh. Masud is grateful to be able to share this award to support students globally. 

After graduation, Masud hopes to enter the field of human rights law, and will be articling at an immigration and refugee law firm that specializes in gender asylum cases.

“I'm very, very excited to find a way to actually participate in these types of cases,” she says.