Aotearoa's first Māori professor of law who is regarded as one of the country's leading Māori legal scholars wants to see more Māori working in the sector.
Professor Jacinta Ruru believes the law is becoming more inclusive of tikanga Māori. Photo: Sharron Bennett
Jacinta Ruru, who has lectured at Otago University since 1999, has been made a Member of the New Zealand Order of Merit.
She said it was a recognition of the wider work going on to make law in New Zealand more inclusive of tikanga Māori.
She said students studying law needed to learn that New Zealand's first legal system was Māori laws.
"We have a really strong vision, bicultural, bilingual, bijural, and we have a huge amount of support from across the legal profession, including our deans, the leaders of our law schools, our colleagues and our current students and alumni."
Ruru is positive the pace of change is picking up.
Her own example is that she went 20 years at Otago University as the only Māori person lecturing law, but in the past 18 months that had expanded to three.
Ruru said it was crucial New Zealand's law schools became more diverse, particularly for Māori and Pacific people.
Earlier this year she told RNZ that tangata whenua had to resort to creating their own journals in order to have their voices heard.
"To succeed as a scholar you must be published, that is a requirement of our job."
Global publishers were a big part of the problem, she said.
"Māori don't feel that the mainstream publishing journals are very welcoming of us.
"As a scholar, as an academic, you're wanting to get your journal articles into those journals where there is high readership and that's those mainstream journals and for the most part, that is not where indigenous peoples are publishing.
"Our Māori academics and our indigenous scholars around the world are not getting their work published in those realms and that is of major concern."
Professor Ruru has published widely on indigenous peoples' rights, interests and responsibilities to own and care for lands and waters.
She is a strong advocate for decolonising the tertiary sector, including legal education. She has co-founded many initiatives including the University of Otago Māori Academic Staff Caucus, Te Poutama Māori, and the Māori teaching and learning research theme Poutama Ara Rau.
She co-directed Ngā Pae o te Māramatanga, New Zealand's Māori Centre of Research from 2016 to 2021. She was one of the first Māori women to be elected Fellow of the Royal Society Te Apārangi. She holds Ministerial appointments to Te Papa Tongarewa Museum of New Zealand Board and Kāhui Wai Māori, the Māori Freshwater Forum.
Professor Ruru's contributions have been recognised by the Prime Minister's Supreme Award for Excellence in Teaching and an inaugural University of Otago Sesquicentennial Distinguished Chair.