cultural resources

Kevin Gover, who will deliver opening remarks
Manley A. Begay Jr. (Navajo), moderator, associate social scientist/senior lecturer, American Indian Studies Program, University of Arizona, and co-director, Harvard Project on American Indian Economic Development at the John F. Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University
Jerry C. Bread Sr. (Kiowa), outreach coordinator, facilitator and adjunct associate professor, Native American Studies, University of Oklahoma
N. Bruce Duthu (United Houma Nation of Louisiana), chair and professor, Native American Studies, Dartmouth College
Suzan Shown Harjo (Cheyenne/ Hodulgee Muscogee), moderator. President, Morning Star Institute and past executive director, National Congress of American Indians, and a founding trustee of the National Museum of the American Indian
C. Richard King, co-editor, Team Spirits, Native Athletes in Sport and Society, and Encyclopedia of Native Americans in Sports, and professor and chair of the Department of Critical Gender and Race Studies, Washington State University
Oren Lyons (Onondaga), Council of Chiefs, Onondaga Nation, and SUNY distinguished service professor and professor emeritus of American Studies, College of Arts and Sciences, University of Buffalo
Delise O’Meally, director of Governance and International Affairs, NCAA
Lois J. Risling (Hoopa/Yurok/Karuk), educator and land specialist for the Hoopa Valley Tribes, and retired director, Center for Indian Community Development, Humboldt State University
Ellen Staurowsky, professor, Department of Sports Management, Goodwin School of Professional Studies, Drexel University
Linda M. Waggoner, author, Fire Light: The Life of Angel De Cora, Winnebago Artist; and editor, Neither White Men Nor Indians: Affidavits from the Winnebago Mixed-Blood Claim Commissions, Prairie du Chien, Wisconsin, 1838-1839

New Scholarship on Native Hawaiians and NAGPRA

January 10, 2013Matthew L.M. Fletcher

E. Sunny Greer has published ” Na Wai Hoʻōla i Nā Iwi? Who Will Save the Bones: Native Hawaiians and the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act” in the Asian-Pacific Law and Policy Journal.

An excerpt:

This paper will argue that although the application of the Native American Graves Protection Act (“NAGPRA”) in Hawai‘i is problematic, it is imperative that Native Hawaiians include the care of ancestral remains and cultural objects as integral components of their cultural and political assertion of sovereignty.

Kristen Carpenter Publishes “Limiting Principles and Empowering Practices in American Indian Religious Freedom”

January 9, 2013Matthew L.M. Fletcher

Kristen A. Carpenter has published her paper, “Limiting Principles and Empowering Practices in American Indian Religious Freedoms” (PDF) in the Connecticut Law Review. We highly recommend this paper.

The abstract:

Employment Division v. Smith was a watershed moment in First Amendment law, with the Supreme Court holding that neutral statutes of general applicability could not burden the free exercise of religion. Congress’s subsequent attempts, including the passage of Religious Freedom Restoration Act and Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act, to revive legal protections for religious practice through the legislative and administrative process have received tremendous attention from legal scholars. Lost in this conversation, however, have been the American Indians at the center of the Smith case. Indeed, for them, the decision criminalizing the possession of their peyote sacrament was only the last in a series of Supreme Court cases denying American Indian Free Exercise Clause claims. Moreover, the Supreme Court’s Indian cases share a common and previously overlooked feature: in all of them, the Court assessed the Indian claims as too broad or too idiosyncratic to merit Free Exercise Clause protection and instead denied them through a succession of bright line formulations. Identifying the unrequited search for a “limiting principle” as a basis for analysis, this Article reassesses the religion cases and underlying theoretical questions of institutionalism and equality, in their Indian context. It then identifies two contemporary policy shifts—namely Congress’s decision to entrust accommodation of Indian religious freedoms to federal agencies and its decision to do so at the tribal, versus individual, level—that have, in some respects, facilitated an “empowering practices” approach to American Indian religious liberties in the post-Smith era. Taking a descriptive and contextual approach, the Article illuminates opportunities for additional law reform in the American Indian context and also larger questions of institutionalism, equality, and pluralism in religious freedoms law.

Professor Carpenter’s paper already has an impressive impact. Ninth Circuit Judge William A. Fletcher based his keynote address at Berkeley Law School’s symposium on Phil Frickey’s legacy on her paper.