Frank Pommersheim will be speaking at our conference, which begins tomorrow night.
Here is a snippet of his work, from UCLA’s Indigenous Peoples’ Journal of Law, Culture & Resistance.
Symposia
American Indian Law & Literature — Speaker Bios & Abstracts
Please visit the Indigenous Law Conference website for links to the speakers’ bios, abstracts, and papers.
Formatting is a bit messy on this page — sorry.
We Made Indianz.Com!!!!
Here’s the short article — with a dashing photo of our keynote, Frank Ettawageshik.
Of course, Indianz profiled our conference from last spring as well. As did the State News.
Miigwetch!
American Indian Law & Lit Speakers Profile — Richard Delgado & Jean Stefancic
We are pleased to welcome Richard Delgado and Jean Stefancic to East Lansing this weekend. They will be presenting a talk entitled, “Crossover.”
They are both very prolific writers and have been pioneers in the development of Critical Race Theory. And Richard has published several articles related to Indian law and policy, see, e.g., here and here. Jean and Richard co-authored a recent book of law and literature, “How Lawyers Lose Their Way: A Profession Loses Its Creative Minds” (Duke, 2005).
Occasional Paper on Economic Development
In conjunction with the upcoming 2nd Annual Great Lakes Economic Development Symposium, which Matthew posted about here, I’ve written an introduction to eight articles we’ve submitted for the conference materials. The piece, From Economic Development to Nation Building: Observations on Eight Articles about Tribes, Sovereignty and Economic Development, will also be available on the Center’s Occasional Papers website.
American Indian Law & Literature Conference Agenda
Please see here.
2nd Annual Great Lakes Tribal Economic Development Symposium
This symposium is scheduled for October 31 and November 1 at the Soaring Eagle casino and hotel in Mt. Pleasant.
Keynote speakers include Lance Morgan of Ho-Chunk Inc. and Joe Kalt of the Harvard Project.
The most recent agenda (subject to change) is here.
MSU American Indian Law & Lit Speaker Profile: Kirsten Matoy Carlson
In the coming weeks, we will be profiling the work of the speakers scheduled to present at the 4th Annual Indigenous Law Conference, “American Indian Law and Literature.”
The first profiled speaker, Kirsten Matoy Carlson, will be presenting a paper called, “Unresolved Disputes:Narratives in the Transformation and Processing of Persistent Claims.”
Kirsten’s abstract (from SSRN):
In 1980, the Supreme Court decided the largest land claim ever lodged against the United States government in favor of the Lakota people. The decision should have ended Lakota claims to the Black Hills, but it did not. This law review article seeks to understand why these claims persist despite their formal adjudication. It brings two traditions of legal scholarship together for the first time by considering the role of narrative in the sociolegal processes of dispute creation and re-creation. It argues that grievances persist through narratives, which facilitate the naming, blaming, and claiming stages of dispute creation. These narratives present a separate historical and legal perspective, and argue for the righting of historical injustices. As these narratives are repeated, the dispute is created and re-created intergenerationally, often evolving along the way. The article concludes that these narratives, which diverge from traditional legal narratives about the claims, explain the persistence of the unresolved dispute.
MSU NALSA Panel: Cherokee Freedmen
On November 9, 2007, MSU’s Native American Law Students Association will be hosting a panel discussion on tribal membership issues in light of the Cherokee Freedmen controversy.
The speakers include Marilyn Vann, the lead plaintiff in Vann v. Kempthorne (D. D.C.), and Mike Phelan, in-house counsel for the Pokagon Band of Potawatomi Indians. Mike’s talk will be a more general discussion of the law of tribal membership.
Materials about the Cherokee Freedmen dispute are available on Indianz.com here. My own take on the question is here and here.
Michigan Affirmative Action Symposium
The Michigan Journal of Race & Law is hosting a symposium on affirmative action in Michigan after Prop. 2.
The symposium announcement is here.
For materials on Prop. 2 and its potential impact on American Indian students, please go here and here. For a pdf copy of the Michigan Civil Rights Commission report on Prop. 2, go here. Attachment no. 4 of the report concerns the impact of Prop. 2 on American Indian tuition waiver and is here.
From the symposium announcement….
From Proposition 209 to Proposal 2:
Examining the Effects of Anti-Affirmative Action Voter Initiatives
The diversity of perspectives that is cherished and celebrated by the Michigan Journal of Race & Law and the University of Michigan community is threatened with the passage of ballot initiatives like Michigan’s Proposal 2, which bans the use of race and gender in school admissions. These issues are both timely and critically important in a society that is becoming increasingly segregated by race and ethnicity, both residentially and socially. With the recent passing of Proposal 2 as well as the recent U.S. Supreme Court ruling regarding the use of race in public schools, we believe it is crucial to maintain an open and positive dialogue regarding race and education. To that end, our Symposium endeavors to address the variety of policy and legal questions arising out of the anti-affirmative action movement. Our Symposium will explore a broad range of issues including: the current effects of Proposition 209 in California and the potential effects of Proposal 2 on public university education and leadership within the state of Michigan, potential legal alternatives to affirmative action, and existing and emerging efforts to remedy K-12 educational disparities. Most notably, we present this symposium with the hope of preserving the University of Michigan’s longstanding commitment to diversity and as an answer to University of Michigan President Coleman’s request to “Show others what a U-M education looks like”.
Turtle Talk 