“Did you tick off that box?”
I felt really fortunate to get into UBC Law. Until I actually applied, I didn’t know that there was even a separate category that I could apply to. So, I hadn’t really met with anybody or an advisor or anything like that. It wasn’t until I walked into the building and grabbed an application and started filling it out—or was it online?—and started doing the application [that I] saw that there was a category for Aboriginal students. So, I was pleased to see that, as well as the other categories I saw for people who identify as other types of minorities, or LGB community. I was pleased with the application itself.
I can say that once I got into law school, I did have some adverse experiences around treatment by other students. I did have several people ask me or say to me that I was really lucky because “obviously my education was free,” or people just outright either assuming that my education was free or they would just simply ask, “So, you get your schooling paid for, right?”
I wasn’t so rude as to ask them if their parents were paying for their education, but people had no problem assuming or asking me a very private question about my personal financial circumstances. I found that very offensive. They felt entitled to ask that, and I didn’t ask them what kind of privileged background they came from that would give them the benefit of being able to attend law school and pay for it. So, I just thought that that was a stupid double standard that people had. A person who is not Indigenous would not say to a non-Indigenous person, “Oh, are your parents paying for your education?” or, “Aren’t you lucky? You come from a privileged background. Your parents must have been able to pay for tutors and pay for your education, and you didn’t have to work as hard to get there. You already had the financial backing of parents who could afford to send you to university, and you had a lot of other advantages in life that you didn’t even appreciate or were aware of your whole time that you’ve been alive. So, isn’t that the case?”
Of course, I never said any of those things. I just let it go. Frankly, I would usually answer people about that, which, unfortunately, was just none of their business, but I didn’t know how else to respond to it. I didn’t want to pick any fights or seem—oddly enough, I didn’t want to seem like I was being rude, and yet, they were really the ones that were being rude. So, if you think about it, I wouldn’t have said to anybody that I suspected or knew to be part of the LGBTQ community whether they ticked off that special box, or any other racial minorities, or other people with disabilities. I would never do that to anybody else. I don’t know if those people who asked me about how I got into law school—they would ask me, “Did you tick off that box?”—I didn’t ask them if they ticked off the “white privilege” box, and nobody saw that as a problem, and that really bothered me.
So, that was more than an annoyance, and it certainly made me feel like I was an outsider and that I didn’t fit in and that even though I was there from the same starting point and had the same anonymity that all the other students had when it came to identity on exams, it still made me feel like an outsider and like I didn’t belong because somehow I had an easier ride, didn’t have to work as hard. So, it was a blow to my self-esteem to have to put up with attitudes like that. That was one of the things that I noticed most in first year.
No shame in telling me to my face
I can point to specifically a couple of pretty negative experiences I had. One of them had to do with somebody who was a moot judge of mine. After the moot, talking to this person, I was getting a weird vibe from him that he didn’t like me, and I didn’t know why. I couldn’t tell, but it’s just what happens when you’re a racialized person or you’re part of a minority or you’re used to being treated badly. So, I was aware that he didn’t like me, and I couldn’t put my finger on it. So, we did socialize with the rest of the moot team and a bunch of other people who were mooting together that day, and I remember bringing up the issue of Aboriginal rights because I wanted to see what his reaction would be. He said, “Well, the thing that Canada did wrong is that they didn’t do it like the United States. They should’ve just had the Indian Wars and tried to wipe everyone out and just take away everything that they had. Instead, Canada tried to play nice, and look where it got us. Now, we’re spending millions of dollars.” And this person did not have any shame in telling me that to my face. The fact that this person was so unabashed about it was pretty, to me, shameful and, again, just reflected some of the mentality of other people who had had Aboriginal law education in law school.
This person had also told me that their family was quite highly regarded in the legal profession—I knew this about them, and it really made me sad to think that I’d already started from a place where this person already didn’t respect me and was pretty disgusted by Aboriginal rights. So, I said that I would be the bigger person, and I said, “You know, I respect your right to have your own opinion about Canadian law,” because he said, “You’ll probably never want to talk to me again now that I’ve said these things to you.” I said, “You know, I’m going to be the bigger person, and I’m going to hold my head up high. When we see each other in school, I’ll just say hi to you.”
Then I did see him in school the next day, and I just had this moment where I could either acknowledge him and pretend like everything was okay, or I could look away and not acknowledge him because I was too upset, too disgusted with his attitudes. I chose to look away and not acknowledge him because I thought that I’d really given him a break by actually not making a bigger deal, in front of everyone that we mooted with, that he was saying these pretty super-racist things. I mean, to say that the US got it right—it was pretty gross.
Sick to my stomach
The only other experience that I’d really point to was in one of my courses, talking to one of my professors, and the professor asked me if I was Indigenous, and I said yes. The professor said that they felt very sorry for me, and I thought, “Okay, that’s interesting.” They said, “Well, I’ve heard from Aboriginal women. I know so-and-so, who’s kind of big in the Aboriginal legal field, and they go to conferences all the time. She’s been to a lot of conferences, a lot of Aboriginal law conferences, and she’s told me that she’s never been to a conference where she didn’t get raped. So, good for you for sticking it out, and you’re just really up against a lot of hardship and a lot of prejudices.” I was sick to my stomach to think that my professor was telling me that that’s what they thought my story was and that they could just speak so point-blankly about sexual assault like that. To do it so superficially, and in literally just one sentence said that, and this is just standing around after class.
So, I knew that I was already different in that professor’s eyes. You know, on the one hand though, at least you know what people think. That’s just kind of where I was at at the time. At least I know where they’re coming from and the prejudices that they hold or what they think of me as an Indigenous woman. But now it just makes me sick to think that people would say and do those things, just without really giving it much thought.
Mooting
Mooting? Oh, it was terrible! I mean, I eventually became a litigator, but at the time I’d never had any public speaking experience. It’s a very intimidating process to even go to law school. So, mooting was just a painful experience for somebody like me who had low self-esteem and who already felt like they weren’t good enough to be there and didn’t fit in. It is pretty antithetical to the way in which Indigenous people operate. We don’t go in there and force our views upon other people.
So, it feels like I’m a stranger participating in a process that is pretty foreign. I think there’s value in learning how to do that, but I think it shouldn’t be as huge a step as going straight into a moot, but maybe a skills-based approach, like what they do in the bar exam course, where you take small steps towards learning how to publicly speak and getting more exposure to that and getting comfortable. Maybe not everyone had that experience, but I know that I came from a small place—small communities, I should say—where those kind of opportunities never presented themselves. Frankly, standing out was dangerous for you. You didn’t want to stand out. You wanted to blend in because you’re racialized by the police. You’re racialized by doctors, by the justice system, by the education system. You’re racialized, and so standing out is just about one of the more dangerous things that you can do.
I didn’t feel very well supported by the general student body when I was there. I was looked down upon by them. So, wanting to know that we have special programs or that things are there for us, special supports are there for us, that would be anxiety producing for me because people weren’t very responsive to finding out that I was Indigenous before. That’s just me though. That’s my own hang-up about what I would’ve wished was a bit different back then because I really didn’t like having to stand out the way in which I did.
“Oh, but are you Indigenous?”
Being asked in front of a room full of people if you’re Indigenous and to tell them where you’re from, on the first day of school, when your professor asks that in front of everybody there—they’re not asking that person what their background is. “Oh, but are you Indigenous?” These are my brand-new classmates, and the last thing I wanted to do is stand out. I think that it just makes it all the more isolating for Indigenous students to feel like you’re being pointed out. I mean, they would never ask, “Are you a member of such and such a group? I’m judging by the way you look.” They would never ask somebody like that, but they say that to us in front of the whole class, and why they need to label that or understand that without us choosing to raise that or address it—it’s a very personal choice to disclose something about yourself that you know other people have their own prejudices about and are going to judge you for.
There were students in my year who I had no idea were Indigenous. They chose to stay closeted about being Indigenous, and I respected that. I knew who they were but only because there was an open filing system at that time where the academic advisor for the Indigenous students [had] an open filing drawer, that was left out in the open, and it just had a file for each of the students. So, if there was something you wanted to note, you wanted to leave, or something you wanted to pass onto your advisor and they weren’t there, it was their sorting system. So, I could just see all the names of the students who were there, and so that’s how I found out that some people that I knew didn’t identify as Indigenous. They had their own reasons for wanting to stay anonymous, and I respected that.
I think that it’s always such a personal choice about what people… I don’t know where people come from. I don’t want to make any sort of judgements. Everybody has their own story, and they should be able to tell it in their own way, and I respect that. I don’t expect anyone to come out as being Indigenous if they’re not comfortable, proud, they don’t think it’s relevant. Really, none of my business. Really isn’t. I still find that in practice when people say, “Oh, you must be really pleased about this court decision,” or, “You really must be happy about…” People still make assumptions, based on the fact that I’m an Indigenous person, that I must be against this and for this. So, that doesn’t really stop. Those preconceptions start in law school, and they keep going right into practice, yeah.
Where are the supports?
We had so few events for Indigenous students to do things together basically, one a semester. It was really just once a semester there would be drum making. Actually, I think that we did drum making one time. There was very, very little for Indigenous law students to get together to do.
In my experience, there wasn’t very much networking at all for connecting—well, specifically to reach out to Indigenous students to connect them with any career options. I always thought the careers office was pretty useless, frankly. It certainly didn’t represent my interests on what I did ask about, specifically Aboriginal law. I think I was given a list of, “Well, here’s eight law firms in BC that do it”—just given a list, and that was it.
I would think it would be nice to have a mentorship program for students with practitioners–I don’t know if that exists now, but it didn’t when I was there. I went out of my way to connect with one of the professors who I took for one semester, and that person has just stayed a friend and mentor ever since I first met them. Just being able to have that connection and to get a sense, because you really don’t know. It feels like a whole big, wide world, and you have no idea what your experience is going to be like. It’s just it’s really hard to get a sense of what the legal community is like. So, I think that that would go a long ways, if it doesn’t already exist, to have that one-to-one mentorship, and not even just limit it to one person but maybe meeting with a new mentor every semester so you get a variety.