Māori academics are 'lonely, isolated, and struggling to be heard'

Friday, 12 February 2021

Professor Jacinta Ruru, of Otago University.

Walking the long, colonial halls of Otago University law faculty, its once “lonely only” Māori academic is looked down upon by portraits of Pākehā professors.

There is nothing obviously indigenous displayed in the law faculty of the country’s oldest university.

Professor of law Jacinta Ruru, Raukawa/Ngāti Ranginui, has for more than 20 years walked those halls that don’t leave anyone feeling comfortable being Māori.

Founded by settlers more than 150 years ago, institutional racism is woven into more than just the university’s bricks and mortar. It is inherent in Aotearoa's entire tertiary sector, she says.

Ruru has co-edited a “call for action” to tertiary institutions about the growing frustration, alienation and deep hurt of 24 Māori academics, in a new book Ngā Kete Mātauranga..

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“I really hope [university leaders] read this book,” Ruru tells Stuff.

Maōri academics are lonely, isolated, and struggling to be heard, with many finding their way back to Māori studies departments, which while important, mean other disciplines lack mātauranga (Māori knowledge).

“They really had their hearts broken finding there’s very little place for them.”

The book – co-edited by University of Auckland Professor Linda Waimarie Nikora and released on February 12 – is a timely message of hope for the future, Ruru says.

Hurt experienced by Māori academics at Waikato University reached headlines in 2020, and at her Otago University, questions were raised about the medical school’s special category entrance to enhance diversity in the sector.

“It was extremely hard for us to be heard. It was a major miscommunication issue that could have been handled very differently if Māori had been involved right from the beginning.”

Witi Ihimaera’s story Yellow Brick Road resonated with Ruru.

Māori academics at the university feel their ideas are “never really met with overwhelming enthusiasm”, and meeting the aspirations within its official Māori strategy fall mostly on already stretched Māori staff, she says.

Ruru envisages a future far more welcoming to academics, and where rangatahi (young people) are encouraged to have dreams and expectations – enriching universities with their mātauranga.

“We can have both. We can have learning of Western knowledge alongside our indigenous knowledge.”

Growing up in rural Otago, Ruru was always encouraged to go to university by her parents, who had not.

“I had a not great experience at high school, except I remember in fifth form an English teacher gave me my first piece of Māori writing.”

She instantly related to Witi Ihimaera’s story about a roadtrip tainted by racism – Yellow Brick Road.

It drew many parallels to Ruru’s experiences travelling in their whānau “big yellow panel van” up to their Raukawa Marae in Ōtaki.

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She began her tertiary journey at Canterbury University in 1993 when she “didn’t even know that uni and varsity were the same thing”.

“I didn’t have the connections, the older siblings, the family structure that normalised the tertiary context. But in saying that, I loved it. I was for the first time in control of my education, and I thrived.”

She finished her Bachelor of Arts in politics and Māori studies at Victoria University, during which time she saw for the first time mention of Te Tiriti o Waitangi in a friend’s law textbook.

She became hooked on law, gaining her degree at Otago, before becoming an assistant lecturer in 1999, and going on to complete a masters and becoming a full-time lecturer. She was the only Māori in the faculty until six months ago.

Ruru initially thought courts had to understand and listen as lawyers made their arguments. But she quickly became disappointed that law school didn’t reflect Māori experiences of dispossession from ancestral lands, and court decisions undermining Māori aspirations.

Universities are entirely built on a knowledge system that values inherently a Western understanding of learning and teaching, she says.

It was while doing a PhD in Canada under indigenous law mastermind John Burrows, that Ruru was struck by his first-person and personal style of writing unlike anything in journal articles in New Zealand.

“He was writing about dreams he had on indigenous land, and talking about his grandparents.

“He was very much an inspiration for me, and he was always asking about our indigenous knowledge – what are the Māori laws about this?”

His work was instrumental in creating change in Canadian law, and students can study indigenous law while learning on the land from elders.

“There is a real valuing of indigenous knowledge.”

She is excited about the future and knows the same can be done in Aotearoa, in all disciplines.

But to get there, Māori are needed in decision-making roles and academia. Māori professors across the country have been calling for the sector to review its Te Tiriti responsibilities.

She has had a “really encouraging” letter of support about the book from Education Minister Chris Hipkins. She hopes they can meet with sector leaders in the near future about prioritising its Te Tiriti responsibilities.