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CROSS EXAMINED Not your stereotypical academic University of Toronto constitutional law professor has more than book smarts. BY ROBERT TODD U niversity of Toronto law professor Sujit Choudhry is not your stereotypical academic. Spending all his time holed up in a dimly lit study concocting theories of limited use in the real world would drive him batty. Choudhry, one of the world's top experts in comparative constitutional law, seems to be more comfortable spending time with armed guards in war- torn countries. It's certainly not the kind of setting in which you'd find many associate deans. But it is integral to his desire to help establish the rule of law in stricken parts of the globe. Choudhry's unconventional approach to academia was shaped early on. His parents, both academics, came to Canada from India in the 1960s. Choudhry was born in Delhi during a sabbatical. The family returned to Toronto, where Choudhry and his brother Niteesh were raised in the suburb of Don Mills. Their father, Nanda, was an economics professor who taught for over 30 years at the University of Toronto. His mother, Ushi, was a professor of nursing at Seneca College. Choudhry says he and his brother, now a professor of medicine at Harvard University, enjoyed a particularly stimulating upbringing. "It was a very academically and politically engaged household," says Choudhry. "We always had the CBC on the radio, we always read The Globe and Mail. We had lots of dinner guests from around the world." The elder Choudhrys certainly impressed upon their sons a keen sense of academic rigour. But they also urged them to wade into the fray. The law professor says his parents believed academics must live in the real world — their work has to mat- ter to people on a practical level, and they must speak truth to power. "They weren't ivory tower people at all," he emphasizes. Choudhry opted to begin his post-secondary education studying sciences at McGill University, but soon discovered a career in science or medicine wasn't for him. At the same time, legal-medical issues grabbed his attention. He won a Rhodes Scholarship, and decided to complete his legal studies at Oxford. That's where an interest in constitutional issues began to sprout. It certainly made sense for Choudhry to become engaged in the topic. He had attended McGill in the heart of downtown Montreal from 1988 to 1992. Quebec separatist sentiment was building at the time, later prompting the 1995 referendum, and 20 NO VEMBER / DECEMBER 2010 www. C ANADIAN Law ye rmag.com Sujit Choudhry was awarded a $225,000 Trudeau Foundation Fellowship in September. the Charlottetown accord had the entire country on the edge of its seat. "It was in the air. It was the thing that we all talked about," recalls Choudhry. "In a sense, although I had my degrees in biology, I felt like I got a second degree in Canadian politics at the same time." After wrapping up his studies in England, he returned to Toronto. He spent two years acquiring his Canadian law degree at the University of Toronto, where he says he "fell in love" with the Canadian Constitution. He pursued that passion during a