Professor Kathleen E. Mahoney has a JD from the University of British Columbia, an LLM degree from Cambridge University, a Graduate Diploma from the Strasbourg International Human Rights Institute in France, and an Honorary Doctorate from University Canada West in Vancouver. She is Emeritus Professor of Law at the University of Calgary and King’s Counsel. She has held Visiting Professorships or Fellowships at Harvard University, the University of Chicago, Adelaide University, University of Western Australia, Griffiths University, the National University of Australia and Ulster University in Ireland.

She was the Chief Negotiator for Canada’s Indigenous peoples claim against Canada and major religious denominations for the Indian Residential School policy and the abuse inflicted on students, achieving the largest Indigenous settlement in Canadian history for the mass human rights violations. She was the primary architect of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada and led the negotiations for the historic apology from the Canadian Parliament and from Pope Benedict XVI at the Vatican.

Kathleen has been blanketed three times by the British Columbia Chiefs, University of Saskatchewan, and Treaty 3 First Nations. She received her Indigenous name from Elder Fred Kelly from Treaty 3 First Nation. She was co-counsel for Bosnia Herzegovina in their genocide action against Serbia in the International Court of Justice and her work on the commission rape as a weapon of war in Bosnia contributed to the definition of genocide in the Genocide Convention being re-interpreted to include mass rapes and forced pregnancy as genocide offences.

Professor Mahoney is a Trudeau Fellow, and a Fulbright and Human Rights Fellow (Harvard), a Sir Allan Sewell Fellow, a Senior Fellow and Canadian Co-Chair of the Raoul Wallenberg Human Rights Centre. She received the Governor General’s medal for her contribution to equality in Canada. In 2022 Professor Mahoney received the inaugural Ontario Women in Law Leadership Rosalie Silberman Abella Award. She was awarded Queen Elizabeth II’s Platinum Jubilee Medal twice – one from from the province of Alberta and the other from the province of Manitoba. Since 2008 she has been a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada, the nation’s highest academic honour.

Professor Mahoney will be joined on campus by Indigenous Canadian leader and former National Chief of the Assembly of First Nations Phil Fontaine (Ojibwe). Former National Chief Fontaine played a central role in raising public awareness of the Canadian Indian Residential School system and in pushing to secure Federal and Papal apologies in 2008 and 2022 respectively. Last March, he also helped secure a repudiation of the Doctrine of Discovery from Pope Francis.

Please join us for this important campus talk as Washington State embarks on its own Truth and Reconciliation investigation into Indigenous Boarding Schools.

This event is free and open to the public and is sponsored by The Robert and Mabel Groseclose Endowed Lecture fund and the Office of the Provost and Dean of Faculty.