Professor Gordon Christie joined the Faculty in 2004 and held the position of Academic Director of the Indigenous Legal Studies Program at the Allard School of Law from 2005 to 2016. During this time, the Allard School of Law generated a specialization in Aboriginal Law.
Professor Christie is of Inupiat/Inuvialuit ancestry and researches in the areas of Aboriginal rights, Aboriginal title, indigenous self-determination, and the Crown’s duty to consult and accommodate Aboriginal groups. Professor Christie’s research also focuses on the intersection between indigenous law and Aboriginal law that has developed through Canadian jurisprudence on section 35 of the Constitution Act, 1982.
Professor Christie holds a BA in Philosophy from Princeton University, an LLB from the University of Victoria, and a PhD in Philosophy from the University of California, Santa Barbara. He has previously taught at Lakehead University, Central Michigan University, and Osgoode Hall Law School at York University from 1998 to 2004, where he was the Director of the Intensive Program in Aboriginal Lands, Resources and Governments.
In his inaugural lecture as full Professor at the Allard School of Law on January 10, 2017, Professor Christie described his thesis simply and eloquently: “My thesis is simple - I am going to be arguing that the Supreme Court of Canada has been attempting to complete the project of colonialism over the last 30-something years through its jurisprudence.” Watch Professor Christie’s inaugural lecture entitled Building Legal Colonialism: Liberal Enclosure and Indigenous Self-Determination to learn more.