Constance Backhouse holds the position of Distinguished University Professor and Professor of Law at the University of Ottawa. She is internationally known for her feminist research on sex discrimination and the legal history of gender and race in Canada.

A legal scholar who uses an accessible narrative style of writing, her books and articles profile the fascinating ways in which female and racialized communities have struggled to obtain justice within the legal system.

A graduate of the University of Manitoba, Osgoode Hall Law School, and Harvard University, Professor Backhouse taught law at the University of Western Ontario before moving to the University of Ottawa Faculty of Law as a Full Professor in 2000. She became a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada in 2004, a member of the Order of Canada in 2008, and a member of the Order of Ontario in 2010. 

She was called to the Bar of Ontario (1978) and elected as an Ontario Law Society Bencher (Director) (2003-2015). She was elected President of the American Society for Legal History (2009-11) and President of the Academy of Social Sciences of the Royal Society of Canada (2015-17). 

Professor Backhouse has served as an Ontario Human Rights Tribunal adjudicator, and as an assessor for compensation claims arising from physical, sexual and psychological abuse under multiple class action settlement agreements.  She was a founding member of the board of directors for the Women's Education and Research Foundation of Ontario, and a founding co-publisher and co-editor of the Feminist History Society.

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