Prof. Ubaka Ogbogu receives SSHRC Connection Grant to look into the experiences of racialized and Indigenous law faculty members

A University of Alberta Faculty of Law professor is the co-recipient of a SSHRC Connection Grant to look into the experiences of racialized and Indigenous faculty in Canada’s law schools. 

Professor Ubaka Ogbogu, Associate Dean Research, was part of a team that made a successful application to the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council. 

His team — which is led by Professor Asad Kiyani of the University of Victoria Faculty of Law — will receive $24,830 over one year to help fund their project, “Studying the Professional Experiences of Racialized and Indigenous Faculty in Canadian Law Schools.” With this support, the team hopes to organize a conference, bringing together scholars and academics from myriad backgrounds to discuss their experiences in this area. 

Across the country, law schools have set goals to improve equity, diversity and inclusion. However, the six researchers involved in putting in the application together — all of whom are racialized and/or Indigenous and work at different institutions across Canada — hypothesize that the schools need to do more work to reach these goals, particularly in terms of how they engage with Indigenous and racialized faculty members. 

The team aims to accomplish this by inviting scholars to share their research on the experiences of non-white faculty members in their respective law schools. Additionally, they will invite racialized and Indigenous legal scholars to discuss their experiences in their faculties. The applicants intend to facilitate these conversations through their proposed conference.

This research will fill an important gap as there has been no “systematic or sustained attempt” to examine these relationships and experiences.