Education

Suffolk Law Announces New Indian Law Clinic

Matthew L.M. Fletcher

This text is from a mass email sent to law clinicians, and isn’t (I suspect) the official announcement:

Suffolk Law is excited to announce the creation and launch of our Indian Law and Indigenous Peoples Clinic. This is a project I have long been trying to get off the ground…. Now, with the concerted efforts and amazing contacts of Professor Lorie Graham here at Suffolk and those pesky budget matters solved by the support of Dean Camille Nelson, we are starting our clinic. I was deeply impressed and influenced by my visit (eleven years ago?!) at the University of New Mexico where, through Professor Christine Zuni Cruz and SILC, I came to understand the potential and purposes of Indian Law work in the law school setting. It was that inspiration, the continued work of my friend Aliza Organick (now at Washburn), and the amazing passion of Prof. Graham that allowed this continuing scratchy idea at the back of our collective heads to become a reality.

Our program’s first work has been with the recently federally-recognized Mashpee Wampanoag Tribe for whom we drafted their first set of tribal court rules of civil procedure. We will continue to work with the Mashpee and other New England tribes in tribal court technical support, lawyer training, land use issues and other matters and we will soon begin direct representation of tribal members in the Boston area in a number of cases, including ICWA matters, J-Treaty work and partnering with the North American Indian Center of Boston (NAICOB). I believe we may be the only such full-time in-house, Indian Law Clinic east of the Mississippi….

The clinic will be taught this year by Practitioner in Residence Nicole Friederichs, who has extensive practice background in Indian Law matters, indigenous population work and international tribunal representation. I am sure you will all be meeting her soon at conferences, etc. Very gratifying….

Jeff Pokorak

PS We at Suffolk will also be hiring this year for an IP clinic faculty position — announcement will follow soon.

Journal Article Evaluates Treaty Provisions and their Import for Michigan Indian Education

Singel1 Comment

From the Indigenous Policy Journal’s Winter 2010 issue (link to article here).

The article, titled “The Treaty Basis of Michigan Indian Education,” was authored by Martin Reinhardt and John Tippeconnic, III.

Here’s the abstract:

A socio-historical content analysis of 16 treaties and 3 contemporary American Indian education laws at the federal level revealed that a certain amount of the treaty obligation may yet be unfulfilled regarding tribes currently located within the State of Michigan. Both monetary and non-monetary provisions were analyzed using the United States Supreme Court’s Canons of Treaty Construction. The treaty provisions were further categorized according to certain criteria based on the trust doctrine. The outcomes of the treaty analysis were then compared to the provisions of the Indian Education Act, the Indian Self-Determination & Education Assistance Act, and the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act. Responsibilities of each level of government, implications for school policy and procedures, and recommendations for further study are included.

Law Schools and Indian Law Students

Matthew L.M. Fletcher6 Comments

There is an enormous amount of discussion lately about the future of law schools (for a representative thread of discussion, see here). No doubt there appears to be a major glut in lawyers in the overall market, and many law students are beginning to see law school like trade school. They want to pass the bar and get a job. The liberal arts-style of legal education, along with the major development in the past decades of law clinics, is under attack, at least passive-aggressively.

I see a good chance that many law schools, possibly because they’ve lost a major lawsuit, will start streamlining their legal education palates. Subject areas not on the bar exam will fall by the wayside, or become even more marginalized (along with their instructors). When I was in law school, I skipped securities regulation and corporations in favor of legal history and immigration law, and an awesome death penalty seminar. Law schools that have robust curriculum in race studies, feminist legal studies, and Indian law will feel pressure to drop those classes.

I’m here to tell you that Indian law will be one of those classes that becomes marginalized or disregarded altogether. It’s already pretty marginalized in half of law schools, and disregarded altogether in another quarter.

Those law schools that still emphasize it (probably the same ones that do now) will become the holder and protected of a big secret — there is a market for lawyers in Indian country and in Indian law. American Indians are incredibly underrepresented in the field, Indian tribes are always looking for good lawyers, and tribal economies generate work for lawyers all over. State and federal judges are beginning to look for clerks with Indian law on the transcript — it’s a small number, but it’ll grow over time. If a student can master Indian law, then they can master anything (plus, more and more Indian law cases are coming).

I’m tired of people being warned out of Indian law, that there’s no money in it. I hear it all the time from teenagers to college kids. People out there telling American Indian students not to bother with law school and not to bother with Indian law are just plain idiots.

Friends of Turtle Talk Participate in NYTs Debate on the Future of Law School

Matthew L.M. Fletcher

Here for a full roster of debaters. Here for Kevin Noble Maillard, and here for Rose Cuison Villazor.

And also here:

 

Minnesota State Shutdown Interrupts MN Indian Scholarships

Kate Fort1 Comment

From a longer post by Tenured Radical discussing the shutdown:

Open, however, does not mean that higher education in Minnesota continues to be accessible.  A shutdown into late summer  could begin to disrupt or prevent the matriculation of a majority of students prior to the opening of the fall semester. According to this source, financial aid to the state’s most needy students has already been disrupted, interrupting the education of hard-working students who often rely on the summer term to speed their path to a degree. “State grants and scholarships like State Work study programs, the Minnesota Indian scholarship, Child Care grants and the Minnesota GI bill have all been suspended,” reporter Megan Nicolai writes, and the financial aid office is operating on limited hours. However, “The Student Educational Loan Fund program has stayed open, however, after Ramsey County Chief Judge Kathleen Gearin ruled the service critical during a state government shutdown. SELF loans are low-interest loans for Minnesota students who have exhausted their federal aid options for higher education.”

Sixth Circuit Panel Strikes Down Michigan’s Prop. 2 (Anti-Affirmative Action Statute)

Matthew L.M. Fletcher3 Comments

Here is today’s opinion in Coalition to Defend Affirmative Action v. Regents of the University of Michigan.

An excerpt:

Proposal 2 is a successful voter-initiated amendment to the Michigan Constitution. In relevant part, it prohibits Michigan’s public colleges and universities from granting “preferential treatment to[] any individual or group on the basis of race, sex, color, ethnicity, or national origin.” Mich. Const. art. I, § 26. Our task is to determine whether Proposal 2 is constitutional under the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution. Fortunately, the slate is not blank. The Supreme Court has twice held that equal protection does not permit the kind of political restructuring that Proposal 2 effected. See Washington v. Seattle Sch. Dist. No. 1, 458 U.S. 457 (1982); Hunter v. Erickson, 393 U.S. 385 (1969). Applying Hunter and Seattle, we find that Proposal 2 unconstitutionally alters Michigan’s political structure by impermissibly burdening racial minorities. Accordingly, we REVERSE the district court’s grant of summary judgment for the Defendants-Appellees and order the court to enter summary judgment in favor of the Plaintiffs-Appellants.

Sault Tribe Kids at Camp KinaMaage (UM Biological Station)

Matthew L.M. Fletcher

Here is the article.

From left, Sturgeon Bay Singers Gary Gibson, Joe Medicine, and Duane Gross participate in a feast and celebration at Camp KinoMaage. (Photo by Dana Sitzler)
Click here for more photos of the students during their week at Camp KinoMaage.

Saginaw Chippewa Indian tribe Accepts Mount Pleasant Indian School Grounds

Matthew L.M. Fletcher

From Indianz:

The Saginaw Chippewa Tribe of Michigan held a remembrance and healing ceremony on Monday at the site of the former Mt. Pleasant Indian Industrial School.

The school operated from 1893 to 1934. Officially, five children died there but a search of obituaries and local records turned up the names of nearly 150 more, whose names were read at the ceremony.

The city of Mt. Pleasant owns most of the site but the state deeded eight acres and six historic buildings to the tribe.

Get the Story:
Tribe remembers boarding school era, begins healing (The Mt. Pleasant Morning Sun 6/7)
Tribe plans day of remembrance, healing for June 6 (The Mt. Pleasant Morning Sun 5/31)

“Indian Education in New Mexico 2025” A Report

Matthew L.M. Fletcher

Here:

NMIndianEdRpt2011Apr2411

From the executive summary:

This study indicates that best practices in Indian education entail providing a culturally responsive education for Native students. Culturally responsive education requires systemic reform and transformation in educational ideologies. Such a task is not easily accomplished in a rigid public school structure that is
bound by state and federal laws.

GTB Chair to Attend World Education Expo

Matthew L.M. Fletcher

Article here.

An excerpt:

 Representing a five-county region of Northwest Michigan, Grand Traverse Band of Ottawa and Chippewa Indians Tribal Chairman Derek Bailey will participate in the 2011 World Forum on Early Care and Education.

The event will be held May 3 through May 6 in Honolulu, Hawaii.

During the World Forum, Bailey will meet with 40-50 Global Leaders to exchange knowledge and experiences about programs that directly improve and enhance care and education of young children.

Bailey was asked to represent the five-county region that includes Antrim, Benzie, Grand Traverse, Kalkaska, and Leelanau counties, and to participate in the Global Forum, by a group of organizations that include the Traverse Bay Area Intermediate School District (TBA-ISD), Rotary Charities, the NorthSky Nonprofit Network, and Mother Goose Time.  The five-county region is the region served by the TBA-ISD.

Although Bailey is the Tribal Chairman of the Grand Traverse Band of Ottawa & Chippewa Indians, he says he will participate in the World Forum as a representative of the five-county community.