Inside the ‘Indigenization’ of Canada’s universities: Progress — but also accusations of tokenism, broken promises and ‘ethnic fraud’

A Carleton University professor recently accused administrators of failing to honour a funding commitment so she could fulfil her dream of building an Indigenous ecology institute.

“I trusted an organization that does not value me,” she wrote on Twitter.

Around the same time, a University of British Columbia sessional instructor came under scrutiny over what she says is her Mi’kmaq ancestry, accused of being a “white woman masquerading as ‘Indigenous’” — an accusation she steadfastly denies.

On the surface, these two incidents might not appear to be related. Yet they underscore what some Indigenous scholars say has been a troubling outcome of the push in recent years by post-secondary institutions to “Indigenize” — that is, to bring Indigenous people and ideas into all facets of university life, from governance to academics.

While there has been a spate of hiring of Indigenous scholars into faculty and leadership roles, many have ended up dropping out in frustration, citing a lack of support and resources to carry out their goals. Critics also allege universities are doing a poor job of screening candidates’ claims of Indigenous identity and that a reliance on self-identification is resulting in “ethnic fraud.”

“Universities like to pursue these symbolic gestures, these superficial, surface-level changes that make it appear as though there’s something fundamentally changing when, in reality … the changes are not really there,” says Hayden King, an Anishinaabe educator and adviser to the dean of arts on Indigenous education at Ryerson University.

“That surface-level inclusion hasn’t really pushed colleges and universities to think deeply, critically and creatively about what it actually means to bring Indigenous people, students, communities, knowledge, pedagogies, research methodologies into these spaces.”

So, how did we get here?

In 2015, the Truth and Reconciliation Commission issued 94 “calls to action” to redress the harms of residential schools.

Among other things, they urged post-secondary institutions to “educate teachers on how to integrate Indigenous knowledge and teaching methods into classrooms” and “end the backlog” of Indigenous students seeking a post-secondary education.

Since then, more than 80 per cent of universities have developed a plan to advance reconciliation and 70 per cent have incorporated Indigenous knowledge and methods into teaching and research, according to survey results released in December by Universities Canada, a national association that acts as a voice for post-secondary school presidents.

But those numbers do not tell the whole story.

In the spring of 2015, Zoe Todd, a Métis scholar specializing in Indigenous perspectives on freshwater fish conservation, was hired to teach in Carleton’s sociology/anthropology department while she was still working on her PhD.

“I was one of these very young, very green early hires that was swept up in this commitment across the country to Indigenize,” she told the Star.

About three years in, McGill University tried to lure her away. “Over the moon,” she decided to try to negotiate a better offer from Carleton.

She said an administrator asked her what her dream was. They began to discuss the idea of creating an Indigenous ecology institute to protect freshwater fish in Alberta, where Todd was raised.

“I had not received that kind of generosity … up until that point,” she recalls. “It really felt like Carleton was the right place.”

But while she was away on a yearlong fellowship at Yale University in 2018-19, the commitments she said she had received from Carleton to develop the institute — including an Indigenous faculty hire, a predoctoral fellow and staff support — began to unravel.

To date, she said, she has received about $15,000 for the institute — “a fraction of what I was promised.”

Fed up, Todd posted a lengthy Twitter thread in mid-February about her experience that she framed as a “cautionary tale” about universities’ Indigenization programs.

“I just felt that enough was enough,” she said.

“It’s really clear there’s a limit to what Indigenization really offers. Unless there’s firm financial commitments on the table, all the calls to action and promises in the world won’t matter if there isn’t concrete funding to radically shift the material realities of Indigenous people on Canadian campuses.”

In a statement, Carleton University spokesperson Beth Gorham said the school is committed to creating a positive environment for Indigenous students, faculty and staff. Carleton deeply values Todd’s “outstanding contributions” and looks forward to “engaging in meaningful dialogue regarding the areas of concern she has expressed.”

Todd isn’t the only frustrated one.

Last summer, the CBC reported at least nine First Nations and Métis professors had left the University of Saskatchewan over the past five years due to “racism, a hostile work environment and the slow pace of reforms.”

In 2018, Angelique EagleWoman, the first Indigenous dean appointed to Lakehead University’s law school in Thunder Bay, also resigned. She alleged the university had “systemically sought to minimize” her work and that she felt “constantly challenged” by a lack of funding and a hostile environment.

A discrimination lawsuit she filed against the school was settled for an undisclosed amount, according to media reports.

At the University of Manitoba, Lynn Lavallée, stepped down as the school’s first vice-provost of Indigenous engagement in late 2018. She had been in that role for just over a year.

After describing the university as a “trailblazer” following her appointment, her opinion quickly soured.

“Upon my arrival, things went OK for about four months,” said Lavallée, who is registered with the Métis Nation of Ontario and is now a professor and strategic lead, Indigenous insurgence at Ryerson University’s faculty of community services.

“It became evident that there were certain things, especially behind closed doors, that the university would not budge on, but I knew the community needed and wanted.”

She said the first “red flag” was when the university hosted a national forum for post-secondary leaders to discuss ways schools could more effectively engage with Indigenous communities.

“Administration didn’t stay in the room,” said Lavallée. “I ended up being the most senior administrator in the room.” (A university spokesperson had no comment about this accusation).

On another occasion, the Indigenous students’ association wanted to have a meeting with the university’s senior leadership to discuss anti-Indigenous racism on campus. Lavallée said when she tried to co-ordinate a meeting, she was rebuffed and told she would be the point person for the students.

“I had to go back to the Indigenous students and say, ‘I’m really sorry, but you have to meet with me. You can’t meet with them.’ … That was very embarrassing for me,” she said.

“It really became a tokenistic position, in my opinion. I wasn’t the right puppet to play that role.”

Dr. Catherine Cook, the university’s recently appointed vice-president (Indigenous), told the Star senior administrators did later meet with the Indigenous students and are intent on continuing that dialogue.

She described Lavallée as a “powerful voice” on campus and said a blog post she wrote outlining ways for improving Indigenous governance in academia provided a helpful blueprint.

“Even with her departure, she was able to provide a guideline and a framework for us to work in,” said Cook, who is Métis.

For instance, the university forges partnerships with the Indigenous community now with a mindset of “What can we do for you?” Cook said.

“Too often in the past, the university has gone out and said, ‘We’d like a partnership and this is what we’d like it to be and it has no interest in the community, but often they would engage anyway just to start that relationship. We’re hopeful this will take us down a different pathway.”

Another byproduct of universities’ Indigenization efforts is the number of academic job-seekers with tenuous Indigenous heritage or lived experience, critics say.

“Academia is one of the most fertile grounds for ethnic fraud,” said King, citing an example of a job applicant who self-identifies as Indigenous after discovering an Indigenous ancestor from the 1700s.

“This is a common problem. We’re all discussing it. We’re all trying to figure out how to address it.”

One solution, he said, is to install Indigenous faculty or staff on hiring committees and to ask for community reference letters.

But universities have generally been reluctant to take these steps.

“Universities want their Indigenous faculty numbers to go up,” he said.

“They have a vested interest in making the criteria for who is Indigenous extremely broad.”

As a consequence, he said, those “masquerading” as Indigenous scholars may end up “misrepresenting our politics, our governance, our culture, our societies, our languages” in the classroom, which “continues to perpetuate stereotypes and racism.”

Additionally, scholarships or grants designed for Indigenous faculty may end up going to undeserving people, he said.

“That’s effectively theft.”

Celeste Pedri-Spade, a Queen’s University national scholar in Indigenous studies, shares those concerns. Having Indigenous ancestry does not equate to being Indigenous or having an Indigenous identity, said Pedri-Spade, who is an Anishinabekwe from the Lac des Mille Lacs First Nation.

“People who really have no prior experience can do a great deal of harm in the classroom, through their research and in university governance,” she said. “Presently, there are examples of ‘Indigenous’ research carried out by researchers with tenuous claims to Indigenous identity that is widely contested because it undermines the sovereignty and nationhood of both First Nation and Métis Peoples in Canada.”

Recently, Amie Wolf, a UBC sessional instructor in the faculty of education, came under scrutiny on social media over her claims to Mi’kmaq ancestry.

Wolf had publicly accused the university of deleting interim evaluation reports she had written for 12 teacher candidates who had transferred out of her Indigenous Education in Canada class. She alleged in her reports that the students had shown contempt for Indigenous content and tendencies toward white supremacy.

According to the Ubyssey student newspaper, Wolf later posted a tweet — since deleted — identifying the students by name.

Amidst this controversy, people on social media began to raise questions about Wolf’s claims of Indigenous ancestry.

Darryl Leroux, a professor at Saint Mary’s University in Halifax and author of “Distorted Descent: White Claims to Indigenous Identity,” suggested in a tweet that Wolf was a “white woman masquerading as ‘Indigenous.’”

Wolf subsequently sent Leroux a letter, which he described as a “death threat.”

She has since been fired without cause by the university.

In a series of emails with the Star, Wolf denied she sent a death threat, said she was the victim of a smear campaign, described UBC as a “toxic corporate environment,” and stood by her claims of Indigenous identity.

She said she was born in Edmonton and put in foster care at birth. Her adoptive family raised her in Fort Saskatchewan, Alta., and told her to “never tell anyone of (her) Indigenous ancestry, because no one would want to play or to work with (her).”

In her 20s, she reconnected with her birth parents and received “spiritual guidance and teachings” from them.

“As my birth dad explains, ‘Your great-grandmother was a Micmac Indian.’”

While pursuing an education degree at the University of Alberta, Wolf said, she minored in Aboriginal education and completed her practicum on reserve in Wabasca, Alta. After graduating, she taught at the Athabasca Delta Community School on reserve in the fly-in community of Fort Chipewyan, Alta.

“It was a slow, slow process of studying, researching, teaching on reserves, and learning about Canada’s history that has brought me to the point of being able to bravely say, with knowledge: I am a scholar of Mi’kmaq ancestry.”

Asked whether universities should seek community verification when screening candidates’ claims of Indigenous identity, she said no.

“Being told who you are by people who know nothing about your oral history and who are totally ignorant of the reality of erasure and how the foreign state of Canada remains an enemy to Indigenous identity is retraumatizing. It is my right to claim my identity and to work from the truth of who I am, according to the connection I have forged with my birth father, who has the stories.”

Tosh Southwick, a Yukon-based consultant to post-secondary schools on reconciliation and citizen of the Kluane First Nation, says the question of how you define Indigenous identity is one of the top issues her clients are grappling with.

The answers are not simple, she said, citing an example of an Indigenous person who was raised in an urban centre.

“We shouldn’t deny or minimize the number of Indigenous people who maybe don’t have close connections to their community but live in urban centres and were raised there,” she said. “Those voices are just as important as somebody who grew up in their remote community and knows how to fry bum guts (the intestinal tract of a moose).”

That said, when someone claims to speak on behalf of a group, she said, it is fair game to ask: “Who claims you? Which nation claims you?”

So how to measure the success of universities’ Indigenization efforts? Southwick offers a checklist.

Start with the money. What percentage of a university’s budget is devoted to reconciliation?

“If you have an institution with a $40-million budget and they’re spending $100,000 on reconciliation, then we know where they’re at.”

Are the programs and services offered reflective of Indigenous ways?

“You can get credentials in this country on almost any topic — golf, cooking, Russian history — but nowhere in this country can you get a degree in tanning moose hide, reading the water, First Nations traditional medicine,” she said.

And what is their connection to the Indigenous community? Are there elders on campus? The work of Indigenization cannot fall on the shoulders of Indigenous faculty alone.

Mike DeGagné, president of Indspire, which describes itself as Canada’s largest Indigenous-led charity, agrees.

Nipissing University, Trent University, the University of Winnipeg, the University of Lethbridge and Vancouver Island University are examples of schools that have built “excellent” relationships with neighbouring Indigenous communities, he said.

But retaining Indigenous leaders remains a persistent problem.

Take the case of DeGagné himself. Last year, DeGagné, who is Ojibway from the Animakee Wa Zhing 37 First Nation, stepped down as president of Yukon University after less than three months on the job.

DeGagné declined to tell the Star why he quit but said it was not related to Indigenization.

“I will say that for virtually all of the examples of departures like those you describe, the reason for leaving has been one of principle. While there has been tremendous progress made in the university system in Indigenization, many feel that individual institutions are not progressing quickly enough,” he said.

“Indigenization was not the priority they thought it might be.”

Clarification — Feb. 27, 2021 — This story has been updated to include additional information about Amie Wolf’s termination from UBC and her response to the characterization of a letter she sent to Darryl Leroux.