The Whitewashing of Native Studies Programs and Programming in Academic Institutions

I am Dr. Brian Rice, a Mohawk scholar who has taught in academic institutions for around eleven years. This article will explain how I believe the discipline of Native studies has been co-opted by mostly white academics and Native scholars who reflect a Euroamerican worldview in their teaching and how that has affected me as a Native academic. The article will be in part based on my own personal experiences as a Native scholar within the university context.

I began teaching full-time with a master's degree in 1991 in the Native Studies Department at the University of Sudbury in Sudbury, Ontario. I remained as full-time faculty there for around seven years until I lost my position. I would like to begin by first mentioning a bit of the history of the university, and then I will go on to mention my own personal story at this academic institution and others I have worked in and applied to.

The university began its full-time Native Studies Program in the early 1970s. One of the first courses to be taught was by Anishinaabe scholar Jim Dumont, a traditional leader in the Midewiwin lodge. Also involved in its formation was a noted Anishinaabe elder, the late Art Solomon. The university was at the forefront of the burgeoning discipline of Native studies in Canada during the early 1970s. It was also a focal institution for Native activism during that time. In fact, it had become so successful in its mandate to teach Native students about their culture and heritage that it was investigated by the Royal Canadian Mounted Police as a possible hotbed for Native dissent. Who would not be proud to teach in an institution such as that?: I was.

I joined the department in 1991-92, coming out of several years of both community work and teaching in a small Anishinaabe community. I was hired with the promise that it was a tenure-track position. I was also involved at the time in a PhD education program at McGill University, which was one of the reasons that I was hired. From the beginning I had a successful teaching career with high evaluations in all of my classes. I am proud to say that the Native students I taught gave me a standing ovation on the last day of the first class that I taught. By my second year of teaching I decided that I would not return to finish by doctorate because I could not find any courses that reflected any appropriate Native content. I was forced into taking anthropology courses in order to fill my Native course requirements for my PhD, and I decided I had enough. By my third year at the University of Sudbury, I was told by the chair of the Native Studies Department that I would have to get back into a PhD program if I was to remain faculty. It is important to note that of the five faculty at the time, only one, a white anthropologist, had a PhD. Not even the chair, who was of East Indian descent, had acquired one. That year they hired a reputable Native person with a PhD, who was placed ahead of me in line for tenure.

I began to look for a PhD program that was suitable for my needs, and I finally found one in California that was situated at the California Institute of Integral Studies and directed by an aboriginal scholar named Pamela Colorado. It was called a Native Traditional Knowledge Program and involved an all Native student body and faculty, including elders from a variety of Indigenous traditions. Our residencies were set up so that we could continue to work in our professions and at the same time complete our PhD. The residencies were held in the redwood forests of northern California at a ranch that was donated to us or in various parts of the world with elders as our primary teachers; they took place four times a year.

I arrived in the Traditional Knowledge Program during the second year of its running...