University criticized in race debate

Non-Indigenous instructor for key course

HALIFAX• A group of Canadian professors is speaking out against a Halifax university’s handling of a residential-schools course imbroglio, saying the race or ethnicity of a professor should not be a consideration when assigning a course.

Mount Saint Vincent University found itself embroiled in controversy after assigning a course about Canada’s residential schools to a nonIndigenous professor, something activists say undermines reconciliation efforts.

In response, the school called a meeting this week between Indigenous faculty and staff and the professor assigned to the course to determine a way forward.

But the Society for Academic Freedom and Scholarship said in a letter Monday that the decision to call a meeting undercuts academic integrity. Mark Mercer, president of the society, said it’s up to the Mount’s history department to consider a professor’s expertise and

THE IDEA THAT ONLY INDIGENOUS SCHOLARS CAN TEACH TOPICS INVOLVING INDIGENOUS PEOPLE IS FALSE AND PERNICIOUS.

perspectives. He said these matters should be judged on academic grounds alone.

“The race or ethnicity of the professor is not an academic ground and, thus, should not be a consideration,” Mercer said in a letter to Elizabeth Church, vicepresident academic and provost at the school.

“The idea that only Indigenous scholars can teach topics involving Indigenous People is false and pernicious. Mount Saint Vincent University should clearly and forcefully repudiate it.”

The university should stand by its decision to assign the course to a qualified professor, he added.

On Friday, Church said the university has been actively recruiting Indigenous faculty.

The decision was decried on social media last week, with critics saying only Indigenous Peoples have the lived experience to understand the ways they’ve been discriminated against, and that they should teach their own history.