Aboriginal seats protected at Memorial

Memorial University’s Aboriginal Designated Seats Program has been granted special status by the Newfoundland and Labrador Human Rights Commission, according to today.mun.ca. The status makes it difficult to challenge the up-to three seats that Memorial saves for students of Aboriginal Canadian descent who meet minimum entrance standards in a wide range of programs from visual arts to medicine. “People are reading the designated seats as an invitation,” said Maura Hanrahan, special adviser for the president for Aboriginal Affairs, “not as a guarantee—because they’re not. The same admissions criteria apply to Aboriginal students as they do to non-Aboriginal students.”