Fields of Exile. Nora Gold

is a blonde woman whose hairstyle and neat white blouse and sweater are straight out of the 1950s. Janice has a private practice and is working with Suzy on some community project. Carl Lantern graduated from this school twelve years ago, and is now the Executive Director of First Nations Community Services in Toronto, and the alumni representative on SWAC. An abnormally tall woman says she is a faculty member here at the school and will be retiring at the end of this academic year. She looks like some strange big bird with her amorphous black cape, wild grey-black hair, and intense, mournful glare. In a soft, guttural voice with some undefinable European accent, she says, “I am Hetty Caplar,” but Judith, who finds her startling, even scary, hears instead, “I am Hedda Gabler.” Which makes sense: there is something as grotesquely compelling about this woman as Hedda Gabler herself. The last two committee members are Brenda Chow, a Chinese woman who’s a hospital administrator, and James Roberts, a dark-skinned man in a suit who works for the Children’s Aid Society. Suzy explains that most of this committee is continuing from last year, except for Judith, Lola, and Hetty, and she’s looking forward to these new members’ fresh ideas and energy. Suzy tells everyone Judith is this year’s co-chair; Judith blushes as some people smile and nod at her and others study her appraisingly.

      Then it’s down to business. Tonight being the first meeting of the 2002–2003 academic year, the agenda focuses on planning the upcoming year’s activities. Judith has been worrying intermittently all day about what would be expected of her tonight as co-chair. She realizes now she needn’t have worried, because Suzy runs the whole thing by herself. But she doesn’t mind — in a way it’s a relief. Suzy is a good chair: task-oriented but relaxed and with a sense of humour, and the committee tonight has a free-wheeling, friendly brainstorming session about this year’s Anti-oppression Day, with everyone bandying about ideas, except for Hetty, who sits heavily silent, like a black hole. Several names are tossed around for the keynote speaker — or, as Suzy termed it, “the star.” One name keeps coming up repeatedly — Michael Brier — and after the fifth or sixth time, Judith writes down his name, a reminder to herself to google him when she gets home. Chris in particular is enthusiastic about Brier, saying he’s heard him speak and he’s absolutely brilliant. Ten minutes later Chris brings him up again, offering to contact him and see if he’d be their keynote.

      “Ask what he charges,” James suggests. “We don’t have much of a budget.”

      “Good point,” says Chris.

      Janice says she has a cousin who knows Brier personally and maybe can get Brier to come at a cheaper rate. She and Chris agree to work together on this and bring some more information to the next meeting.

      “Great,” says Suzy.

      “The main thing is,” says James, “whoever we pick should be passionately committed to social justice. Someone who can serve as a role model for our students and for the profession as a whole.”

      Everyone agrees.

      Suzy asks the group what they want to do about food on Anti-oppression Day. There is a general groan and a rolling of eyes. Apparently last year they offered participants two different lunch options, and when people registered, they indicated their preference. There was a three-course meal for ten dollars, and a five-dollar, lighter option — pizza and a donut — for students and the economically disadvantaged. It all became very contentious, with some complaining that even the five dollars for the latter was too expensive. Suzy says she recently attended a family therapy conference where the organizers dealt with the food problem by just writing on the program: Lunch — On Your Own. This is the latest thing, she says, and one easy way to get around all this. But James and Lola object. There is a principle involved.

      “I believe eating together on Anti-oppression Day is a crucial part of the experience,” says Lola. “That is part of what being a community is about. It’s symbolic. The other way you’re basically reinforcing a two-tiered system, the same one that rules in society. The profs and the more privileged students will eat one kind of meal, chicken or whatever, while everyone else gets something crummy. That’s not what social work is about.”

      “My feeling exactly,” says James.

      Oy, thinks Judith. It’s true, of course, that often these “small” decisions are microcosms of larger issues in life. But seriously. Everyone eating the same pizza is not going to equalize society’s inequities. That’s like in H.M.S. Pinafore when they sing, “Love levels all ranks.” Of course it doesn’t. Neither love nor pizza levels anything.