Indigenous scholars allege racism, poor treatment at University of Ottawa

Indigenous academics say a difficult work environment, poor treatment and racism at the University of Ottawa, and a lack of effort to address those problems, has led multiple promising Indigenous scholars to quit.

In interviews, seven current and former uOttawa professors spoke negatively of their experience at the university, with some saying the institution has yet to reckon with its own history of training Catholic priests to run residential schools. Others blamed modern governance issues like a lack of Indigenous representation among senior leadership and a failure to address complaints.

In a year-long investigation, CBC Indigenous learned of an unresolved racism grievance filed by professors Veldon Coburn and Pierrot Ross-Tremblay, the exodus of seven Indigenous faculty members across multiple departments in one year starting in 2023, a civil lawsuit filed by one of them after leaving, and the early retirement of one long-serving Métis professor who called himself "a wounded soldier" and the environment "toxic."

The latest person to leave and speak out is Coburn, a member of the Algonquins of Pikwàkanagàn who officially resigned this summer, echoing a sentiment that the incidents are not isolated but a pattern.

"In the end, it was just a fairly pathetic attempt by the administration to have an Algonquin token, that there was never any real effort," Coburn said of his experience.

Though the university officially recognizes it sits on traditional unceded Algonquin territory, there was no attempt to retain him or resolve his complaint, which remains active, Coburn said.

Veldon Coburn is now an associate professor and faculty chair of the Indigenous Relations Initiative at McGill University in Montreal. (McGill University)

"In fact, it was just a record of poor treatment that is reflective of the larger relationship that the institution has with the Algonquin nation."

In a sit-down interview at her office, university president and vice-chancellor Marie-Eve Sylvestre called the complaints "a reminder that we have so much more to do" and personally committed to doing better.

"I see this as a failure of the university for having been unable to create an inclusive and respectful environment, and I want to make sure that we put in place the conditions to do better in the future," said Sylvestre, a former law faculty dean who became president in 2025.

Marie-Eve Sylvestre is president and vice-chancellor at University of Ottawa and was previously dean of the civil law section at the university's faculty of law. (Brett Forester/CBC)

"Universities are colonial institutions … especially us at the University of Ottawa, given that we were founded by the Oblates," she said.

"We are investigating our past at the moment, and we are sponsoring a history project into the connections between the University of Ottawa and the residential school system."

The president's comments acknowledge concerns that have been circulating. From its founding until 1965 the university was administered by the Oblates of Mary Immaculate, a Catholic order that ran 46 residential schools.

Oblates founded university

Its most notorious known alumnus may be bishop Jules Leguerrier, who obtained a theology degree in 1942 and went on to be the principal at St. Anne's residential school in northern Ontario from 1944 to 1975. Children at the school were subject to extreme physical and sexual abuse and Leguerrier allegedly physically assaulted children including by whipping them and using a homemade electric chair.

Some feel this colonial history casts a long shadow.

"It's part of your history, of your faculty and education. You have to recognize this history," said Nancy Wiscutie-Crépeau.

Wiscutie-Crépeau, who is Anicinabe from Senneterre in the Abitibi-Témiscamingue region of Quebec, quit after a stint in the faculty of education's French sector.

• Police hunted for secret church archives during probe of abuse allegations at St. Anne's residential school

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  St. Anne's residential school horrors revealed by police files

She told CBC Indigenous she remains bitter and angry about her experience, describing the environment as colonial and disappointing. 

"I can't say if there is racism, but what I know is that there is a profound lack of knowledge about Indigenous people," she said in French.

"There is a deep, I would say, ignorance of who we are."

Tricia McGuire-Adams, a member of Bingwi Neyaashi Anishinaabek in northern Ontario, left the education faculty at around the same time in 2023. She spent four years there starting in 2019 but said she "experienced really harmful anti-Indigenous racism" and is now much happier at the University of Toronto.

"I chose to leave because the microaggressions became too heavy," McGuire-Adams said.

"My health began to suffer, my mental health began to suffer. My connection to community and my family began to suffer. And so I know that if I had chosen to stay, I would have continued to deteriorate on that health level."

Another First Nations former professor sued the university in 2023 for $1.4 million over an incident of alleged inappropriate sexual contact.

The statement of claim says the professor "made every effort to seek a resolution" but that "it was clear the University of Ottawa would not take steps to rectify or remediate the situation." The professor was "forced to seek employment at another university," according to the statement of claim.

The allegations are untested in court, no defences were filed, and it's unclear how the case was resolved.

Some professors cited the handling of that case with concern, while one person said the departure of Métis scholar Larry Chartrand was also eyebrow-raising and noteworthy.

'A wounded soldier'

Chartrand worked as a celebrated law professor at uOttawa for nearly 30 years, joining the university in 1994. In a phone interview, he described a slow process of disillusionment and frustration that led him to retire early in 2019. 

"I kind of lost faith in the law," Chartrand said, "but also after you butt heads with the institution about Indigenous reform for so long, you kind of want to just say, OK, that's enough. I'm a wounded soldier. I think I'm going to retire."

He said it would be accurate to say the environment at uOttawa is difficult and colonial, even toxic.

"We're only learning now actually how toxic it can be as an Indigenous prof teaching, for example, the laws that tell you you're inferior," he said.

"It's kind of like being in a residential school in there, but you're the one doing the teaching. And yeah, it can be very troubling."

Chartrand said the university's status as an officially bilingual university with a legal mandate to preserve and develop francophone culture in Ontario can create friction and competition with Indigenous initiatives.

Another former professor, who requested confidentiality out of fears of professional reprisal, blamed this state of affairs on an internal glass ceiling and a failure to promptly address grievances like Coburn's or the one raised in the lawsuit.

"There's like a hopelessness, and you feel like you've exhausted all of your options and it's still not resolved," the person said.

"There's something systemically problematic happening if all these people are leaving all at once, and it doesn't look good."

University of Ottawa's Tabaret Hall circa 1920. The university became a provincially funded secular institution in 1965. (Canada. Dept. of Interior/Library and Archives Canada/PA-034331)

Echoing that, Darren O'Toole, who is Métis and a current uOttawa law associate professor, said a veteran scholar like Chartrand's retirement raised concerns that subsequent departures only reinforced.

"It's atrocious," O'Toole said.

"I mean University of Ottawa at this point, it'd be a sort of revolving door for Indigenous faculty."

O'Toole, who is supporting Coburn and Ross-Tremblay in their grievance, said Indigenous studies professors are isolated in a red brick former nunnery that looks like a residential school. 

"In terms of a toxic culture, if you're sort of isolated like that, don't have contacts with members in other departments in that, you don't realize that it's not normal," he said.

Amir Attaran, who is not Indigenous but is seconded as legal counsel for the Algonquin Anishinabeg Nation Tribal Council, is also speaking out in support of Indigenous faculty.

"I come from the United States. I have never experienced systemic racism as bad as I've seen at the University of Ottawa," Attaran said in an interview.

President responds

During the interview at her office, uOttawa president Sylvestre said she is aware of most of the cases but cannot comment on them specifically for confidentiality and privacy reasons.

Speaking generally, Sylvestre said the university has had its "ups and downs" with the host Algonquin nation but pointed to successful relationship-building initiatives.

She said the university has issued a tuition waiver for Algonquin students, with the Algonquin presence surging from 11 students to 53 students on campus since then. The university had a combined graduate and undergraduate enrolment of 12,300 in fall 2025.

"I feel that we have a responsibility given where we are situated and located, including being on the unceded traditional territory of the Algonquin nation to listen and and respond to the needs of that community," she said.

• Agreement with Oblates hailed as major step in shining light on 'shameful history' of residential schools

As for the investigation into uOttawa's residential school connection, Sylvestre said the work is well underway with the university funding two researchers to comb the Oblates' archives.

"I'm certainly not proud of what we'll find, but I'm proud that we are doing this," she said.

"I think people say there's no reconciliation without truth, and I think it starts there."

There is also collective bargaining ongoing with the professors union where both parties are committing to supporting career progression for Indigenous faculty and resolving grievances more swiftly.

She said she intends to appoint a new associate vice-president, Indigenous engagement, while the university has already adopted an Indigenous verification policy. Strategies for better recruitment and retention of faculty members are in the works, she added.