On March 13, 2024, the NunatuKavut Community Council (NCC) President Todd Russell issued a press release titled “NunatuKavut Community Council rejects Memorial University’s self-proclaimed authority on determining Indigenous identity.” The statement was a response to the NCC’s participation in Memorial University’s “Indigenous Verification” process.
Russell states that while the consultation with First People’s Group, the Ottawa-based company retained to lead the process, was mutually respectful, NCC expressed serious concerns about the approach Memorial is taking in which “they grant themselves the authority to make decisions on Indigenous identity and that we are, therefore, participating in the process under protest.”
Furthermore, Russell states that academic institutions across the country have dealt with issues of false claims to Indigeneity and are scrambling to develop policies or protocols to provide safeguards against resulting harms. Russell says that while the NCC is concerned about the impacts of false claims to identity, the current process by Memorial is not doing anything to address the issue. “Approaches that aspire to create policies on who is or is not Indigenous is already causing great harm,” states Russell.
Russell states that the potential policies or protocols are “moving beyond verifying one’s individual or community connections, and entering into the space of policing Indigenous Identity – something which academic institutions have zero authority to do.” Russell then states that it is prejudicial and discriminatory and sets academic and Indigenous community relations back decades.
Russell claims that the Office of the Vice-President (Indigenous) has an inherent bias, which is illustrated by its decision in April 2023 to unilaterally exclude the NCC from a provincial Indigenous roundtable discussion on Indigenous identity. Russell says this approach ignores the fact that the NCC has been recognized and received as Indigenous by the courts, the federal government, and the Government of Newfoundland and Labrador.
“The university has no role in arbitrating identity nor in creating categories of ‘authentic’ identity,” states Russell. He then says that Memorial is damaging decades of relationships with Indigenous peoples and will have to answer for “instigating processes that undermine Indigenous rights to self-government and self-determination.” He says these rights come from their legal traditions and are upheld by the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples.
Russell says that at the NCC Annual General Assembly in February 2024, their citizens spoke powerfully to their people’s experiences of exclusion and discrimination due to “Indigenous verification” processes and policies at certain academic institutions. Their citizens passed a resolution with a mandate to secure NunatuKavut Inuit rights and recognition at institutions.
“Our people were very clear that they reject the authority of any academic institution to adjudicate, decide upon, or dictate the Indigeneity of a collective of people and reject the validity of any policy or process that purports to support any such authority,” states Russell.
View the release below:
Matt Barter is a fourth-year student in the Humanities and Social Sciences Faculty at Memorial University of Newfoundland, majoring in Political Science with a minor in Sociology. He enjoys reading thought-provoking articles, walks in nature, and volunteering in the community.
Leave a Reply