The Canadian Bar Association named a former University of Windsor law dean as one of two outstanding members of the black legal community honoured for Black History Month.

Juanita Westmoreland-Traoré, a judge of the Court of Québec for the District of Montréal, served as dean of the University of Windsor Faculty of Law from 1996 to 1999. She and Hugh Fraser will receive President’s Awards, honouring significant contributions to the Canadian legal profession.

“Juanita Westmoreland-Traoré is a woman of firsts: the first black, female Canadian law dean, and the first black judge to sit on a Quebec bench,” said association president Vivene Salmon. “She has been an amazing trailblazer and role model for me and other women of colour, a shining example of what we can achieve in our legal careers.”

Westmoreland-Traoré was the only Black student in her 1966 law class at the Université de Montréal and later became the first black woman to teach there, the Canadian Bar Association said. She was the commissioner of the Canadian Human Rights Commission, the first employment equity commissioner of Ontario, and the president of the Conseil des communautes culturelles et de l’immigration from 1985 to 1990.

Fraser is a former Canadian Olympian who went on to a career in law that included being a member of the Dubin Commission investigating the use of banned substances in sports.

The awards will be presented Feb. 19 in Ottawa.