By Sonal Gupta, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter, Canada’s National Observer 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…
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