Professor resigns after challenge to Indigenous heritage

An American artist hired by Emily Carr University (ECU) in 2019 as part of a programme to hire more Indigenous faculty has resigned after Maclean’s magazine challenged her Indigenous heritage, writes David Carrigg for Vancouver Sun.

On Tuesday 6 September, ECU spokesperson Alexandra Korinowsky released a statement confirming that artist Gina Adams had resigned from her tenure-track adjunct professor position on 25 August.

“Emily Carr University takes very seriously the allegations that a member of our faculty made a false claim to Indigenous identity,” the statement read, referring to a Maclean’s article published on 6 September that said Adams was unable to prove her claim that her grandfather was of Ojibwe-Lakota descent. According to the ECU statement, Adams was among a group of faculty hired in a cluster in 2019 as part of a “commitment to reconciliation, Indigenisation and decolonisation”.
Full report on the Vancouver Sun site