UBC Land Acknowledgement Lawsuit Triggers Backlash

By Sonal Gupta
Local Journalism Initiative

A lawsuit filed by four UBC professors and a former graduate student in BC’s Supreme Court argues that the university’s widely practiced land acknowledgements are political, and therefore against provincial law. But legal scholars and Indigenous leaders warn it will undermine progress on Indigenous land rights and reconciliation.

The professors cite the provincial University Act, which says universities must be non-political and non-sectarian, and argue that by using words like “unceded” — meaning the land was never surrendered through treaty agreements — the land acknowledgments say Canada’s land is “stolen” and question the legitimacy of the state itself.

This, they say, forces faculty and students to conform to the institution’s political views.

The petitioners from UBC Okanagan include philosophy professor Andrew Irvine, political science associate professor Brad Epperly, and English and cultural studies associate professor Michael Treschow.

The petitioners from UBC Vancouver are political science professor Christopher Kam and a former philosophy graduate, Nathan Cockram.

However, this argument is being met with strong resistance from legal scholars and Indigenous leaders who see the lawsuit as a denial of legal and historical facts.

“Academic freedom is not freedom from responsibility,” said Amy Parent, a member of the Nisga'a Nation and Canada Research Chair in Indigenous Education and Governance at Simon Fraser University. “This lawsuit is weaponizing academic freedom to maintain colonial discomfort and denial.”

Scott Franks, Métis scholar and assistant professor at UBC's Allard School of Law, said that Indigenous land rights are not a political opinion but a legal fact. Section 35 of Canada’s Constitution protects Indigenous peoples' title to their land, unless explicitly surrendered through treaties.

Frank pointed out that any attempt to challenge land acknowledgements in court would likely fail, given existing legal precedents that reject colonial doctrines like Terra Nullius and the Doctrine of Discovery, which were used to justify taking land without recognizing Indigenous sovereignty.

“It would be contradictory for a court to reason that way because of how Canada's constitutional legal framework recognizes Indigenous peoples’ title,” Franks said.

Many Indigenous nations in BC have never signed such treaties, so the land is legally unceded, which is in effect what land acknowledgments state.

Indigenous leaders find the lawsuit disrespectful and an act of historical denial of Indigenous sovereignty.

“It’s just wrong,” said Chief Robert Louie of the Westbank First Nation.

“The denial of Indigenous presence is a denial of our existence,” said Louie. “It’s a rejection of the truth about the history of this country, and it’s an attempt to perpetuate harmful rhetoric under the guise of academic freedom.”

He added that acknowledgments are personal for Indigenous communities who are still fighting for justice, self-determination and the return of lands that were taken without consent. They are acts of truth-telling that help educate Canadians about their history and build understanding between Indigenous and non Indigenous communities.

The Truth and Reconciliation Commission's 94 Calls to Action also emphasize the need for recognition and respect for Indigenous peoples. These calls stress that land acknowledgements are not only an important educational step but are also part of the healing.

Kent McNeil, emeritus distinguished research professor at York University's Osgoode Hall Law School, said that while the lawsuit frames land acknowledgements as political gestures challenging Canada’s sovereignty, Indigenous peoples are not seeking to dismantle the state.

“They want their rights to be respected,” McNeil said, “and they want jurisdiction over their ancestral territories. But they are not questioning Canada’s sovereignty itself.”

Many people see land acknowledgments as “largely performative,” Franks said. Institutions and universities may say the right words to acknowledge that they’re on Indigenous land, but they stop there without changing how they operate or how they build relationships with the Indigenous peoples connected to that land.

“Acknowledgments are assumptions or presumptions from institutions or persons who aren’t Indigenous or from those territories or those nations,” Frank said.

He works with his students to deconstruct the language in the different land acknowledgments and have them critically examine the difference between Indigenous land rights and settler assumptions in the phrasing.

Critics argue that this lawsuit represents a deeper conservative push to avoid confronting Canada's colonial past.

“This is probably a right-wing action, even though it's couched in the language of academic freedom,” McNeil said.

Conservative actors often employ such tactics to question well-documented historical realities, such as the legacy of residential schools or Indigenous land rights, as well as to deflect ongoing calls for reconciliation, said Parent.

“To me, this represents another conservative gaslighting strategy of denial and displacement.”

While unlikely, if the professors' lawsuit were to succeed, it could set a precedent that would apply in other contexts.
A ruling in BC would not automatically apply across Canada, but it could intimidate other academic institutions into backing away from land acknowledgements, critics warn, which could reduce them to empty rituals with no real commitment to reconciliation or respect for Indigenous sovereignty.

Supporters argue that these acknowledgements are part of the educational responsibility that universities have to foster a more inclusive and informed society. These practices invite students and faculty to actively understand their responsibilities to continue learning, engaging and supporting a vast array of Indigenous peoples' laws and cultural practices.

“Land acknowledgements are not about ideologies,” said Parent. “They're about truth, responsibility, respect and fairness.”

First Nation land acknowledgements in Canada became more prevalent after the release of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission's (TRC) final report in 2015, which documented the harms of the Indian residential school system.

While not explicitly mentioned in the 94 calls to action, the report's focus on reconciliation sparked widespread adoption of land acknowledgements as a way to honor Indigenous peoples and their connection to the land.

The report is the result of a six-year investigation into Canada’s Indian Residential School system and its devastating legacy for Indigenous peoples. The report documents the experiences of more than 6,000 Survivors, whose testimonies reveal widespread physical, emotional, and sexual abuse, forced assimilation, and the destruction of Indigenous languages and cultures.

At least 3,200 children are known to have died in the schools, though the true number is likely much higher due to poor record-keeping4hyperlink "https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/truth-and-reconciliation-final-report-1..." \t "_blank" 7.

The TRC concluded that the residential school system constituted an act of cultural genocide, aiming to eliminate Indigenous identities and communities. The report details the intergenerational trauma caused by these policies, which continues to affect Indigenous communities today, including overrepresentation in child welfare and criminal justice systems, loss of language, and ongoing social and economic challenges.

Sonal Gupta / Local Journalism Initiative / Canada’s National Observer.