Here.
BLT Reports Judge Issues Preliminary Approval of Keepseagle Settlement
Here.
News
Indian Country Today Coverage of MI Native Language Law
From Indian Country Today:
Michigan’s tribal language bill allows uncertified Native speakers to teach
Pottawatomi ‘is quintessentially a language of this place’
By Gale Courey Toensing
Story Published: Oct 27, 2010
Story Updated: Oct 22, 2010
LANSING, Mich. – The Michigan legislature has taken a commonsense approach to the teaching of Native languages in the state’s public schools.
As of Sept. 30, public school students will get foreign language credits for succeeding in Native American language and culture classes taught by tribal elders and other Native language speakers who are not state-certified teachers.
The new law, Public Act 168 of 2010, was introduced in December 2009 by Sen. Mike Prusi, who represents the state’s 38th District, which includes most of the Upper Peninsula.
“With this new law we will put the best teachers, the tribal members who have the greatest knowledge about their culture and language, into our classrooms and teaching our children,” Prusi said at the signing ceremony. “I am happy to be the sponsor of this law because it means that all Michigan students will have the opportunity to be better informed about the history of our state, and about the people we share Michigan with and who have been here the longest.”
The signing ceremony took place in Gov. Jennifer Granholm’s capitol office and included leaders and members of the Hannahville Indian Community Tribe of Potawatomi Indians, the Match-E-Be-Nash-She-Wish Band of Pottawatomi Indians (Gun Lake Tribe), the Sault Ste. Marie Tribe of Chippewa Indians, the Pokagon Band of Potawatomi Indians, and the Little Traverse Bay Bands of Odawa Indians.
Gloria Valencia-Weber Confirmed to Legal Services Corp. Board
Professor Gloria Valencia-Weber Appointed to Legal Services Board
The U.S. Senate has confirmed the appointment of University of New Mexico Law Professor Gloria Valencia-Weber to the Board of Directors of the Legal Services Corporation (LCS). President Barack Obama nominated Valencia-Weber to the national policy-setting board, along with three others.
Valencia-Weber is the first board member in recent memory to contribute an expertise in Indian law. Prior to her 1992 appointment to the law faculty at UNM, where she created the Indian law certificate program, she served on the board of Oklahoma Indian Legal Services.
“Gloria Valencia-Weber has had an extremely distinguished career at the UNM School of Law. She brings an expertise to the Legal Services Board that will benefit the entire country,” said U.S. Sen. Jeff Bingaman. “I send my congratulations to her on this important appointment.”
The LSC was signed into law in 1974 and is the nation’s single largest provider of civil legal aid for the poor. With a budget of $342 million, the nonprofit corporation distributes funds to 137 grantees, which operate 918 legal services offices across the country. From the beginning, the budget included a commitment specifically to Native Americans, and with her deep knowledge of Indian law and tribal customs, Valencia-Weber already has provided valuable insight to her fellow board members.
As a member of the bipartisan 11-member board, Valencia-Weber regularly visits legal services offices across the country, to hear about their needs and see different models being used for providing legal services. During these field visits, board members also meet with other legal services organizations to gain a greater understanding of the overall accessibility of legal representation for poor people.
“I feel highly honored to be on the board,” said Valencia-Weber. “I look forward to learning new things to further the goals of the LSC.”
Disturbing News of the Day: Skulls Mailed to University
Via one of our favorite academic bloggers, Tenured Radical. She has a good point about the reporting, such as
Jim Crow, John Doe — whatever. A little bit of research reveals that the Crow (Apsaalooke) Nation headquarters are also in Montana, slightly south of Billings: Augusta is a four hour drive from there.
PROVO — What first looked like a Halloween prank has turned into a mystery at BYU. A box showed up in the mail Monday, and inside were two human skulls.
The skulls showed up from the U.S. Postal Service in a box, sent Priority Mail. There was no label and no explanation why two skulls were being mailed to the university.
“Why here? We don’t know. They put ‘historical department’ [on the box]. It was delivered to the history department, but we don’t know why,” said BYU police Sgt. Mike Mock.
BLT: Coverage of Possible Problems in USDA – American Indian Farmers Settlement
An excerpt:
The lawyers representing a class of Native American farmers and ranchers say they are confident the claims process that is part of a $760 million settlement will not have the same problems that plagued a similar suit against the U.S. Department of Agriculture.
In the earlier suit, where a class of African American farmers sued the government over alleged discrimination in federal lending programs, thousands of plaintiffs missed out on compensation because claims were submitted after deadline. The Obama administration is seeking congressional approval for $1.15 billion to compensate black farmers who were excluded from the settlement in a case called Pigford I.
Last week, Judge Emmet Sullivan of Washington’s federal trial court asked the attorneys in the Native American farmer discrimination case Keepseagle v. Vilsack to address how the proposed settlement avoids the Pigford issues.
On Monday, Justice attorneys and the lawyers for the plaintiffs filed a joint submission to try to alleviate Sullivan’s concerns. Click here for a copy.
HuffPo on Sen. McCaskill and the Washington Post
An interesting article on Senator McCaskill’s retro plan for Indian tribes and the Washington Post’s anti-8(a) stance. The Washington Post has been publishing a lot of anti-8(a) articles lately, though the idea of Sen. McCaskill using them to push her own bizarre plan is an interesting connection. If the Democratic party is trying to stay away from the “socialism” tag (which is, we know, ridiculous, but still), maybe not switching from a successful 8(a) program to a program paying individual Indians directly out of federal coffers and federal pity would be a good plan. As usual, the power interests are looking to take away any successful tribal enterprise. After all, in the 1950’s after the Menominee Tribe created one of the first (if not the first) sustainable timber industry in the world, they were promptly terminated.
Here is the whole article.
Thanks to Ho-Chunk, Inc., tribal members participate in the American dream in ways not imagined a generation ago, with blue- and white-collar jobs, home ownership, and retirement accounts. Along the way, Morgan has been lauded by the Small Business Administration, the State Department, and business magazines. However, his achievement may soon fade, and fewer tribal members may be receiving paychecks.
Instead, they may be expecting “direct payments” from the federal government — presumably a new form of welfare — that Senator Claire McCaskill (D.-Mo.) suggested to the Washington Post as an alternative to tribally owned businesses. McCaskill is a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, with authority over Defense Department spending. If she has her way, Morgan said, hundreds of Ho-Chunk, Inc. employees will be laid off, kids’ college scholarships will be put on hold, and tribal housing-assistance programs will be cut.
McCaskill fielded the direct-payments idea in a series of Washington Post articles that sometimes anticipate and sometimes shadow the senator’s activities, with policy creating news, and news creating policy. McCaskill, and the newspaper, are sharply critical of Alaska Native Corporations (or ANCs), created to settle indigenous land claims, with Native people as individual shareholders. In July 2009, the Post, also referred to as WaPo, got in an early shot at the highly successful corporations, warning that “long overdue scrutiny of ANCs is about to get intense.” In late September and early October of this year, the paper published a rapid-fire succession of pieces, then announced on Oct. 7 that McCaskill would soon introduce legislation to “target” the Small Business Administration’s tribal 8(a) program. When McCaskill’s press release appeared the next day, Oct. 8, it noted that the newspaper had confirmed her findings and she would move on the legislation.
Bay Mills Buys Land in Vanderbilt
From Upnorthlive:
The Bay Mills Indian Community is now the owner of a large parcel of land in Vanderbilt.
The more than 45 acres of property is next to I-75. The tribe is evaluating the condition of a 1200 sq. foot building, which is the former Treetops Resort Welcome Center, on the property.
While rumors have circulated that the tribe may choose to open a casino on the land, leaders of Bay Mills said they will use the land for hunting purposes.
Tribal leaders said they have been looking for a parcel of land for more than 10 years and the current economic climate allowed the tribe to buy the property at a reasonable price. Leaders have not prepared any trust application in regards to the site.
Here’s some information about tribal religious claims to Rattlesnake Mountain in Eastern Wash.
The article is weighted toward non-Indian concerns. http://www.tri-cityherald.com/2010/10/07/1199522/rare-rattlesnake-mountain-tours.html
News Coverage of Justice Alito at Red Mass in Grand Rapids
From the G.R. Press, via How Appealing:
U.S. Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito Jr. made his first visit to the city Monday, making time to tour the area before renewing the Lawyer’s Oath for a group of Catholic lawyers during the annual Red Mass at the Cathedral of Saint Andrew.
“I enjoyed it very much,” Alito said of his trip to Grand Rapids.
He said the Red Mass teaches judges and lawyers there are “solemn responsibilities” that come with the job.
Members of the Catholic Lawyers Association of Grand Rapids and the diocesan Canon Lawyers gathered Monday night for the Mass, celebrated by Bishop Walter Hurley.
The Red Mass — named for the color of the robes historically worn by jurists — is held near the onset of every Supreme Court session.
News Coverage of Seneca Election Battle (Featuring Rob Porter!)
From the Buffalo News, via Pechanga:
Robert Odawi Porter, 47, is proud of his Harvard Law School education and the fact that he left behind his career as a law professor to return to his roots in Western New York.
Maurice A. John Sr., 62, calls himself a warrior and says he has battled with the state and federal governments for decades.
The two men, both widely known in their tribe, are facing off in the Seneca Nation presidential election Nov. 2.
Porter has the backing of the powerful Seneca Party, which has dominated the Indian nation’s elections since the 1980s. John, who served a term as president from 2006 to 2008, is an independent.
Each insists he is the one to lead the Senecas through a stormy period marked by fights with the state over cigarette taxes and hundreds of millions of dollars in debts associated with the three Seneca casinos.
“I know I am the underdog. … I’m an old man taking on a big machine,” John told The Buffalo News. “But when I travel around our territories and talk to people face to face, I find that a lot of them agree with me that we have to get our financial house in order. We have to stop running up debts.”
Porter said addressing the debt problem is important to him, too. He wants the Seneca Nation to improve its economy by increasing educational opportunities for young people and by expanding the nation’s business interests beyond cigarettes, gasoline and casinos.
“My family never had a lot of money when I was growing up. We got some of our food from government programs,” Porter said. “What opened the door for me, and changed my life, was education.”
Porter grew up in Salamanca, where he was raised by his mother, Lana Redeye, a teacher who is now the Seneca Nation education director. He graduated from Salamanca High School and later earned degrees from Syracuse University and Harvard Law School.
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