Getting each other through
One of the [highlights of law school] was getting to study with other Indigenous students. At the time, there weren’t that many of us in law school, and it seemed like the University of Saskatchewan and UBC were the main schools that had a significant number of Indigenous students. There was a group of us at UBC who actually all originally met at the Program of Legal Studies for Native People in Saskatoon. Most of us didn’t know each other until that program. I knew one or two people in the group that ended up at UBC, but I didn’t know them well. I knew that they were already at UBC, and so it was a real attraction for me to apply to transfer to UBC because I knew that these folks were there and I had already met and studied with them at Saskatoon. And I had lots of high points with them. They became friends, they became study mates. It was really super to be able to go through law school and in most of my classes seeing one or two faces that I knew quite well.
I don’t think I would have lasted as long in law school as I did without the group of fellow students I hung out with. They were an amazing source of support. Some of them I still remain in contact with today, and am happy to do so because particularly at that time they really added much value to my life and we spent a lot of time getting each other through law school.
There was—what was it? Native Students’ Association? We were pretty active that way. But it was just mostly people that I went to Saskatoon with. There were some students ahead of us in third year, and of course there were some students that had graduated a few years before.
I was involved in off-campus Indigenous events and culture and that kind of stuff. My First Nation is in Manitoba, so I was doing west coast stuff and I had again some amazing elders and elders-in-training who were very important in my life and again kind of helped me get through law school when things got really hard and I really was questioning “Why the heck am I doing this?” There was a friendship centre on East Hastings Street while I was in law school. I did some cultural events there. And often the Indigenous students, particularly ones that were in second year, we seemed to be quite a cohesive group, we would just have dinner together, that kind of thing, and just really that was cultural. That was cultural as well for me.
We don’t go to school for ourselves
Not every Indigenous student who doesn’t complete or doesn’t return is a good match with the law school. I mean there are non-Indigenous students where that happens as well, and I think it’s just way better if someone says, “You know, I’ve done first year and it’s not for me.” It’s better to do that than finish it up and then go into practice and hate your life for 20 years and always feeling you’re the round peg in that proverbial square hole, or vice versa. My concern particularly with Indigenous students. As Indigenous people, in some ways I think we are a little bit more prone to it, because we don’t go to school for ourselves. We’ve got mom, dad, cousins, sisters, brothers all lined up behind us. Just because you don’t complete law school doesn’t mean that you’re lost. There are many, many, and I would say often better contributions you can make to our people or our cultures, our nations that don’t happen in law school, and you’ll never get them in law school.
“Too much Indian content”
There weren’t very many courses [with any Indigenous content] at that point at all that I recall. Where I did Indigenous content in particular was [in] three courses with [a professor] who used to teach legal history there. So I did one or two of his legal history courses and then I did the equivalent of a directed paper with him. They were all on Indigenous topics. In some [paper] courses, we had instructors who were willing to entertain Indigenous content in research papers and that. Most of my courses were just plain-old lecture courses with little to no Indigenous content at all. That was the time. There were very few faculty there who were teaching anything about Indigenous content, because at that time Indigenous people really didn’t matter to law professors, to most law professors. It hadn’t crossed their radar. I’m glad to say things have changed.
I can remember having a conversation with one of the associate deans at the time who told me I was doing “too much Indian content.” So, you know, it was the time. That I was taking too many seminar courses, that I needed to take harder law courses, and that my papers seemed to have been pretty focused on Indigenous rights issues. And that person didn’t see how that was going to assist me (a) to find a job and (b) to be a competent lawyer. Again, things have changed.
It wasn’t quite the dark ages, but…
We depended on [the Indigenous students’ director] for support and sometimes just support in dealing with racism, actually. We did encounter some. I think all of us probably did—you know, some racist incidents. And we weren’t expecting that in a law school. In my experience, and I’ll only speak in my experience, they all came from other students. It didn’t come from faculty. And of course that was also a time before … human rights law was just beginning to flourish and develop its modern meanings and interpretations. So there really wasn’t much one could do at that point when one had been subjected to a really in some cases overtly racist comment from another law student. It always hurt or stung. I don’t think the administration at that point even saw it as an issue.
The first generation of people going through law school, who started on their own, I think that period probably lasted about 20 or so years. There were some other people around the law school that were kind of in that first wave, modern wave of Indigenous people coming to law school. And when I as a student heard what they had to put up with, I felt things had moved forward, even though racist comments and things would be made in class—it was racist, I tell you what it was. These days we would say that. Maybe in those days you may say, “Oh, well, they really are not well informed. But okay.” And of course that was the day when we were expected to actively educate our other classmates about Indigenous matters and that it was our responsibility to do that.
So it was a different time, and one can carry a lot of angst, anger, bitterness about that time. But I just made a choice not to do that. That what I would be responsible for myself and just work to be as healthy as I could.
Law schools at that point in many ways, and the NITEP program, the Native Indian Teacher Program, were the very few programs where you would put your Indigeneity out front and it was something that was considered a positive for admission. I had friends who applied to other schools who on their applications did not put down that they were Indigenous. And in fact there was no room on the admissions forms to even put that. People didn’t very much wonder what Indigenous people wanted, why they wanted to come to university, what the university could do to retain them. I think that they were aware that there was a huge dropout rate. But my general sense is that the university wasn’t thinking that it needed to change at that point. Often it sounds even kind of medieval. And I suppose in some ways, for Indigenous people in postsecondary institutions, it was kind of a medieval time. It wasn’t quite the dark ages, but—you know? And I think that has been a real challenge for almost all postsecondary institutions: “Yeah, we’ll make it easier for a diverse population to get in, but once they’re here, they’re really essentially on their own.”
The head snap
In some courses, it was usual [to have] what I call “head snap”. You know, there’d be a question about some Indigenous issue, and 35 heads in the class would snap in your direction to give “the Indian point of view.” And just once an instructor called on me in class to give that Indian or the Native point of view. “Indian” wasn’t used. It was the “Native” point of view. You know? So I probably was stupid enough at that point and scared enough that I tried to get the Native point of view, which, you know, is impossible.
I’m better equipped now to deal with it. Unfortunately, it may be because I’ve had more practice. And I think profs have come a fair way on that. So it would be really remarkable if a prof did that these days. It just really would. Where it wasn’t so remarkable in my time. To me, that’s kind of an indication that we’re moving forward, we’re learning, we’re—I can’t expect someone that was raised in Kerrisdale and money, who had two parents that were professionals, who didn’t see Indigenous people except when they went downtown so to speak to have any understanding of what it’s like to be an Indigenous person, let alone what it’s like to be an Indigenous women. Still lots to do, lots more changes to happen, but things have at least in my opinion moved forward in a more positive way, and I think that they will continue to do so because we don’t take it anymore so to speak.