Once Known Truth Talks invite not only remembrance, but reckoning – creating a space where shared history can be discussed honestly, and where truth supports healing, education, and ongoing cultural continuity.

Truth telling in the academy: racism, colonial legacies, Aboriginal resistance and human rights

Dr. Hannah McGlade and Dr. Carol Dowling will present an overview of the 2026 Australian Human Rights Commission inquiry examining racism in universities. As the foreword to the report notes, “Many universities were established as colonial institutions… They were built upon a foundation of racism and systemic exclusion, starting with the First Peoples of this land”.

The talk will also discuss the issue of racism more widely as it impacts Aboriginal people, especially in Western Australia.

Aboriginal resistance, truth-telling and human rights must be respected as part of the journey to address racism which is systemic and structural, deeply embedded across systems and places.

About the speakers

Associate Professor Dr. Hannah McGlade is a Kurin Minang Noongar woman of the Bibbulman nation and is a leading Aboriginal human rights law expert. She is an outstanding advocate for justice for Aboriginal people, especially concerning race discrimination and Aboriginal women and children’s issues. Her work has included establishing family violence legal services for Aboriginal women and children in Perth and WA, and advocating internationally for the separate national action plan on violence against Aboriginal women. She was the Senior Indigenous Fellow at the UN Office of the High Commission on Human Rights (2016), a member of the UN Permanent Forum for Indigenous Issues (2019-2025), and is an Associate Professor at the Curtin Law School, Curtin University.

Associate Professor Dr. Carol Dowling is a proud Badimia (Yamatji) woman (Nyarlu) knowledge holder/leader (Marja) whose strong family ties are in the Central West of WA. She has worked as Lecturer in Aboriginal Studies for over 34 years at Curtin University, Edith Cowan University and University of Western Australia, specialising in Aboriginal arts, Indigenous Research Methodologies/postgraduate studies, human rights, sustainability, politics and culture. Carol holds a Bachelor of Arts (Aboriginal & Intercultural Studies) from Edith Cowan University and a Master of Arts (Indigenous Research and Development) from Curtin University. Carol has a Doctorate in Social Sciences from Curtin University with her PHD research involving an auto-ethnography of five generations of Badimia women in her maternal family. Dr Dowling has also won two national Australian Human Rights Commission awards for radio in 2013 and 2014. As inaugural Chair of the Badimia Bandi Barna Aboriginal Corporation (BBBAC), Carol along with committee members and elders wrote a Badimia healthy country plan that led to a $15.2m joint management agreement with the WA state government for 114,000 hectares including two former pastoral leases and seven reserves. Carol has recently contributed the forward to Legacies of British Slavery in Australia and New Zealand (University of Manchester Press 2026) edited by Zoë Laidlaw and Jane Lydon, reveals how wealth, power, and racial labour practices derived from British slavery continued to shape colonisation, economic development, and relations with Indigenous peoples in Australia and New Zealand long after abolition in 1833.

Once Known Exhibition

Once Known at the Old Perth Boys’ School presents reproductions of the delicate and culturally significant artworks created by Aboriginal children forcibly taken from their families and detained at the Carrolup Native Settlement in the 1940s. Lost overseas for over 60 years, these artworks came home to Noongar Boodja, providing the opportunity for sharing truth, healing, and reconciliation.

Supported By: Lotterywest and the City of Perth

Exhibition open as part of Boorloo Heritage Festival: 1 April - 30 April

Header Image: Panel discussion at Once Known, Curtin 139 St George's Terrace. Photo by Sharon Baker.

Contact the host of Truth Talk: Truth Telling in the Academy

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