Western Standard - June 03, 2022


Fake indigenous professor resigns from the University of Saskatchewan


Episode Stats


Length

2 minutes

Words per minute

153.18964

Word count

353

Sentence count

21


Summary

Summaries generated with gmurro/bart-large-finetuned-filtered-spotify-podcast-summ .

Dr. Carrie Barassa resigned from the University of Saskatchewan Wednesday over questions about her claims she's Indigenous. She was a professor of community health and epidemiology at the College of Medicine in the Department of Community Health and Epidemiology.

Transcript

Transcript generated with Whisper (turbo).
00:00:00.000 Professor Carrie Barassa resigned from the University of Saskatchewan Wednesday over
00:00:04.320 questions about her claims she's Indigenous. Barassa claimed to be Mady, Anishabi, and Tingit,
00:00:10.700 but her ancestry came into question by the CBC investigation in the fall of 2021.
00:00:16.680 The University of Saskatchewan reviewed the information from CBC and media interviews
00:00:21.180 given by Barassa about her Indigenous ancestry. The University of Saskatchewan has carefully
00:00:26.660 reviewed the information in interviews and responses from Dr. Carrie Barassa to recent
00:00:32.260 articles challenging her Indigenous identity, said the University of Saskatchewan press release.
00:00:37.740 The University has serious concerns with the additional information revealed in Barassa's
00:00:41.600 responses to the media with the harm that this information may be causing Indigenous individuals
00:00:46.940 and communities. An investigation will be proceeding into the statements and information shared by
00:00:53.040 Dr. Barassa. Barassa is on forced vacation while investigating her ancestry. The University of
00:00:59.580 Saskatchewan has placed Dr. Barassa on leave and she is relieved of all her duties as professor in the
00:01:04.400 University of Saskatchewan College of Medicine in the Department of Community Health and Epidemiology.
00:01:10.280 Dr. Barassa will not return to any faculty duties during this investigation, said the University of
00:01:16.020 Saskatchewan media release. Barassa received millions of dollars of research grants for Indigenous
00:01:20.700 health and was considered a leader in the field. The Institute of Indigenous Peoples Health removed
00:01:26.180 Barassa from her position as scientific director, which is part of the Canadian Institutes of Health
00:01:31.320 Research. The College of Medicine, University of Saskatchewan Dean Preston Smith released a statement
00:01:37.820 Wednesday about Barassa's resignation and shifts the university's focus to prevent the same
00:01:42.980 situation from happening again. Given Dr. Barassa is no longer with the university,
00:01:47.700 an investigation being conducted by Jean Tillet will now focus on recommendations for improvements
00:01:54.020 to the relevant University of Saskatchewan policies and processes, said Smith. Tillet's recommendations
00:02:00.340 will be provided to the University of Saskatchewan in the near future and these recommendations will be
00:02:05.620 shared publicly. Barassa wrote numerous books and scholarly articles on Indigenous health and was a
00:02:12.100 professor of community health and epidemiology. I'm Chris Roelkorn reporting for the Western Standard.