University students battle racism

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A recessed economy and stiffer competition for limited space in university have resulted in an increase in racial discrimination against Native students.

Native student association officials are reporting a jump in the number of racist remarks and acts against Indians by non-Aboriginal students and professors.

Non-Aboriginals are usually tolerant of Natives attending university as long as they feel the Natives are not taking someone else's place or getting a free ride, University of Manitoba in Winnipeg Native student adviser Florence Bruyere said.

A general ignorance of Natives and Native culture by non-Aboriginals compounds that attitude, even in a place of supposed higher learning, she said.

"Anything that you find in the city of Winnipeg, you'll find right here. The attitudes don't stop at the edge of the university campus."

Some of the university's 600 status Indian students have reportedly been told to cut their hair shorter to look respectable.

In January 1992, a Native woman who nabbed a parking space ahead of a non-Native student later found a letter on the windshield of her car which read, "You are nothing but a typical f-ing ugly, stupid bannock-eating, lazy-ass boggan!"

The note also warned her to stay away from campus because "You never know what good citizen might exterminate you!"

At the time, University of Manitoba Native Student Association president Margaret King said the parking lot note was only one in a string of racial slurs against Natives.

Bruyere said many non-Native students still think of Indians that way. During an advertising campaign for a Native students' association social last year, someone spray-painted "Bring your own Lysol" on the inside of an university elevator.

Similar incidents have occurred at other universities as well. University of Winnipeg, Native Studies Union president Christine Cochrane said students at that university endure more off-color remarks from professors than from their peers.

The U of M is currently developing its own policy concerning racist incidents on campus, said Terry Voss, a member of the university's advisory board on human relations.

And a lot of student s still believe that treaty Natives get a free ride through university, although recent funding cuts to Native education access programs have limited the number of Aboriginal attending universities, she said.

There is nothing free about subsidized education for Aboriginals, said the University of Alberta Aboriginal Student Council president Cathy Sewell. Canada benefited "tremendously" from the exploitation of the mineral wealth on First Nation's land.