Canadian universities are making stronger pushes toward identifying faculty who have made false claims of having an Indigenous identity, encouraging Native communities despite an overall mistrust of government-led efforts.

In one of the most recent examples, Queen’s University apologized over a case in which six faculty were regarded as falsely claiming Indigenous status, a designation that often brings institutional preferences in areas such as hiring rights and the creation of academic content.

The university issued a report promising to recognize as Indigenous only those faculty with both Indigenous citizenship and a lived experience as Indigenous.

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The case followed that of Carrie Bourassa, who resigned from her position as a professor of health at the University of Saskatchewan after her university promised to pursue an investigation into her claims of Indigenous heritage and to implement a more general review of its policies in this area.

About 1.7 million Canadians—roughly 5 percent of the nation’s population—claim Native origins. Some Indigenous experts acknowledge that the criteria for assessing Indigenous identity are complicated and vary among tribal communities and leaders, often requiring universities to make difficult judgment calls.

For many years Canada’s universities have done a poor job in negotiating that problem, too often hiding the controversy rather than examining it, according to Niigaanwewidam Sinclair, a professor of Native studies at...

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