Aron Solomon
In what is going to be a remarkably interesting case involving a new law school and a student who is suing them for $750,000 in a human rights complaint, we are going to find out if there is any consequence when a law school profits off using a student’s name, image, and likeness to promote the school.
The story began back in 2018. I had just written about Toronto’s Ryerson University and their desire to open a law school. The city already has two law schools — the extremely expensive Osgoode Hall and the truly insanely expensive University of Toronto Faculty of Law. These are arguably the two most elite and prestigious law schools in the nation, so why would another university even consider opening another law school?
Because Ryerson was going to be different. In an expansive sea of expensive sameness, Ryerson was going to be the law school of the people, committed to social justice and making a difference while training a different type of lawyer.
According to the Toronto Star, Ryerson may have fallen well short of their lofty goals and become yet another law school accessible to only some people. Ish Aderonmu, who says he is struggling to pay rent let alone pay tuition, says he is facing racial discrimination at Ryerson via a program that is inaccessible to a poor Black man.
He’s right on the last count. Tuition and fees at Ryerson’s law school are right around $23,000. Add to that the realities of rent and life in one of the more expensive cities in the world and it’s inconceivable that any person who’s even close to poor could afford to attend.
Without the law school’s help, that is. And while it’s entirely up to any law school to decide who does and who doesn’t get help with the costs of attendance, if Ryerson hasn’t significantly helped Aderonmu, it’s going to prove to be a serious embarrassment.
In his interview with The Star, Aderonmu said that the law school benefited from publicity around a Black man who had life experience with the justice system coming to the university. Before law school, Aderonmu was convicted of felony charges for a drug offense (cannabis) in Philadelphia. He was released from prison when he voluntarily agreed to return to Canada.
In a 2020 interview, Aderonmu recounted some of the reasons he chose Ryerson law:
“I was turned on by the message that this is an opportunity for you to help us build this. That got me. I did a lot of research around law schools and met with recent graduates just to learn about their experiences and what I was hearing was that law schools are certainly accepting people of colour into their programs, but it wasn’t necessarily a comfortable and safe place in that it’s still old, White and conservative”
That’s precisely what makes this a strong name, image, and likeness case even if neither the potential claimant nor the defendant has yet to see it that way. Aderonmu didn’t self-create the narrative about Ryerson building a different type of law school, the law school did and happily enlisted their star applicant along for what they promised would be a great ride.
Josh Geist, a Pittsburgh lawyer, makes this crystal clear:
“In the current climate, where a university profits off the name, image, and likeness of a student, without their permission or consent, it’s no great surprise that the student would consider a claim.”
In quite an irony here, Ryerson has since named their law school the Lincoln Alexander School of Law, after a famous Black lawyer who served as lieutenant governor. That the university would essentially use Aderonmu’s name, image, and likeness as a poster child without any compensation is shameful in Ryerson’s context. Ryerson, of course, denies all of Aderonmu’s allegations.
How this will eventually play out remains to be seen and will be interesting to watch. The university is going to dig in here, unwilling to set a precedent that, absent a legally-binding agreement, a student can argue that they are entitled to compensation where a university profits off their name, image, or likeness — even where use of that student’s unique life story propelled a new law school to open.
Ryerson’s certain counterpoint will be that Aderonmu raised $40,187 through a GoFundMe campaign to attend law school. Point taken, but that doesn’t change the fact that Ryerson profited from using him. Even more importantly, are we all willing to acknowledge that as a society we have arrived at the point where poor people have to crowdfund to go to school?
What makes this an exceptional case is that Ryerson built a law school on Aderonmu’s back. He was not only their PR, media, and social media superstar, he was, in startup terms (which Ryerson’s law school was) the persona.
He was the difference-maker, the exact student archetype that would allow Ryerson’s law school to survive. Ish Aderonmu as Ryerson Law’s competitive and comparative advantage is going to play very well in the media and perhaps in court.
None of this is now about Aderonmu’s background, his failures and successes in life, his most profound strengths and inevitable shortcomings as a person. Ultimately, when a business uses someone to craft a redemption narrative, they need to be prepared when it goes profoundly wrong, as it has for Ryerson University. How Ryerson might fare in court, as well as in the court of public opinion, is going to make for an interesting winter.
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Aron Solomon, JD, is the chief legal analyst for Esquire Digital and the editor of Today’s Esquire. He has taught entrepreneurship at McGill University and the University of Pennsylvania, and was elected to Fastcase 50, recognizing the top 50 legal innovators in the world. Aron has been featured in CBS News, CNBC, USA Today, ESPN, TechCrunch, The Hill, BuzzFeed, Fortune, Venture Beat, The Independent, Fortune China, Yahoo!, ABA Journal, Law.com, The Boston Globe, and many other leading publications.
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