Professor-Naiomi-Metallic_Dalhousie-Alumni

Increasing awareness: Naiomi Metallic (BA’02, LLB’05)

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As an assistant professor at the Schulich School of Law, and the university’s first Chancellor’s Chair in Aboriginal Law and Policy, Prof. Naiomi Metallic (BA’02, LLB’05) is working to raise awareness of Indigenous affairs at Dalhousie and beyond.

Discovering her own interest in Indigenous history

Prof. Metallic grew up in the Mi’kmaq community of Listuguj in the Gaspé Peninsula of Quebec. She and her sisters were educated at an off-reserve English school where they were taught little about their own ancestry.

During her undergraduate studies at Dalhousie, Prof. Metallic began to learn more about the history of assimilation of First Nations communities in Canada. “I got all riled up about the treatment of our First Nations people,” she said in an interview with Chatelaine Magazine.

Encouraged by one of her professors, Prof. Metallic applied to law school and began her studies at Dalhousie’s Schulich School of Law through the Indigenous Blacks and Mi’kmaq Initiative. “I think she noticed that there was an inner advocate in me who was wanting to come out,” said Prof. Metallic of her professor.

A path back to Dalhousie

In 2006, Prof. Metallic began clerking for Justice Michele Bastarache, becoming the Supreme Court of Canada’s first Mi’kmaq law clerk. She then worked at Halifax law firm Burchells LLP for eight years, while remaining involved with Dalhousie as an occasional guest lecturer at the Schulich School of Law and a member of the Dalhousie Board of Governors.

Prof. Metallic returned to her alma mater full-time in the summer of 2016 after accepting a tenure track position at the Schulich School of Law. “I look forward to playing a role in strengthening the relationship between First Nations in the region and the law school and Dalhousie more broadly,” she said of her appointment.

Later that fall, Prof. Metallic became Dalhousie’s first Chancellor’s Chair in Aboriginal Law and Policy, a position created partly in response to Calls to Action from the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, including the recommendation that Canadian law schools require all students to take a course on Aboriginal peoples and the law (Action 28).

She is working with stakeholders across the university to incorporate Indigenous curriculum into courses in all faculties, while teaching and mentoring students of her own, publishing research and speaking at conferences.

Advocacy in many forms

Prof. Metallic is increasing awareness of Indigenous affairs not only through her work at Dalhousie, but also through advocacy on a variety of channels. In July of 2016, she spoke out against the lack of diversity in the Canadian judiciary, calling it a “judiciary of whiteness.”

In an effort to ensure her work remains accessible to all, she also uses blog posts, op-eds, and social media to advocate for change on behalf of First Nations communities across Canada.

Read more in “The lawyer who’s changing the way law schools think about indigenous affairs” on chatelaine.com.