Native Nations Law & Policy Center

October 2021 Newsletter

Bozho,

November is Native American Heritage Month, and we could not be more excited to celebrate and uplift Native Nations and Indigenous Peoples. The NNLPC Speaker Series has been active. Our past event recordings are available at our NNLPC Events webpage. Please join us on November 17th for our next exciting event: The Ascension of Indigenous Cultural Property Law. For those of you interested in attending law school – please join us on November 10th for our Native Nations Law and Policy Center UCLA Law Liveguide, where you can hear from professors, students, and alumni about the law school experience.

Megwetch,

Angela R. Riley (Citizen Potawatomi Nation)

Professor of Law and Director, Native Nations Law and Policy Center

NNLPC NEWS

NNLPC Fall 2021 Speaker Series: The Ascension of Tribal Cultural Property Law

Please join us for a conversation with leading Indigenous rights scholars as they discuss the growing impact of tribal law on issues related to Indigenous Peoples’ cultural and intellectual property.

Date: Wednesday, November 17, 2021

Time: 12:15pm - 1:30pm

Where: Via Zoom, register here: https://ucla.in/39aoIb3

Indian Boarding Schools in North America

Professor Lauren van Schilfgaarde was the guest speaker at the Mitchell Museum of the American Indian in a discussion that explored the U.S. Indian Boarding Schools and the government policies that produced the industrial schools, highlighted the resiliency of survivors, and discussed the lingering traumatic effects on Indigenous communities.

Watch the video here: https://fb.watch/8FJUaycD6l/

TLDC Director, Professor Lauren van Schilfgaarde, was quoted in an article featured on Katie Couric's website, "Indigenous Women are Going Missing at Alarming Rates — Here’s Why You Haven’t Heard About it: Read it here: https://katiecouric.com/news/why-are-indigenous-women-going-missing-and-cases-ignored/

NNLPC Director Professor Angela R. Riley is a signatory along with other Indian Law professors on an Amici brief regarding Tribal sovereign immunity. Read the brief here:

https://www.courthousenews.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/10/native-sovereign-ca1-amicus.pdf

TLDC Director, Professor Lauren van Schilfgaarde will be a panelist for TLPI's 25th Anniversary Speaker Series on November 16th, "Building a Vision for the Future". This panel will focus on a vision of tribal justice for the future, including exploring questions like: what does the future hold for tribal justice and how can we get there? Register Here.

TLDC Director, Professor Lauren van Schilfgaarde was a speaker alongside Sheldon Spotted Elk and Brett Lee Shelton for the 52nd Annual National Tribal Judicial and Court Personnel Conference on Oct. 19, 2021, “Indigenizing Tribal Child Welfare Through Peacemaking”

Indigenous Peoples' Day

The UCLA Native Nations Law & Policy Center hosted an outdoor mixer for Indigenous People's Day. Attendees included members of the Native American Law Students Association and the American Indian Studies Center, allies, students and faculty.

California Indian Law Association 2021 Conference

The CILA Conference will be virtual this year. The 2021 California Indian Law virtual panel series will take place via Zoom on a biweekly basis, starting on Thursday, October 7, 2021 and ending on December 16, 2021.

Our TLDC Director Lauren van Schilfgaarde will be a panelist on the Ethics-Substance Abuse Panel on Thursday, November 4, 2021.

EVENTS

UCLA Law Liveguide

Learn about Tribal Law, Federal Indian Law and the Native Student Experience at UCLA on November 10 at 4:00pm!

https://law.ucla.edu/admissions/meet-us/live-sessions-current-students

NNLPC Fall 2021 Speaker Series: The Ascension of Tribal Cultural Property Law

Date: Wednesday, November 17, 2021

Time: 12:15pm - 1:30pm

Where: Via Zoom, register here: https://ucla.in/39aoIb3

Recent Event Recordings

Indigenous Peacemaking at the Intersection of Law and Culture

Background: Following the June 17, 2021 Columbia Journal of Race and Law Volume 11 Symposium, Strengthened Bonds: Abolishing the Child Welfare System and Re-Envisioning Child Well-Being at Columbia Law School, (full video recording HERE), Lauren van Schilfgaarde and Brett Shelton released their article, Using Peacemaking Circles to Indigenize Tribal Child Welfare. The concept of restorative justice speaks to the larger issue of genocidal harms wrought across Native North America by the inter-related histories of imprisonment, boarding schools, and child adoption (see emerging dialogues, including Department of the Interior Secretary Deborah Haaland's Initiative to explore the ramifications of the boarding school legacy more fully). While harms may be addressed by seeking what was removed – language and cultural programs that retain and re-establish tribal culture – historic resources, when encountered in archives and museums, also have the potential to re-traumatize community members and students.

UCLA and UCLA Law hosted a lecture based on the twin premises: "Why do harms matter still today?" and "What does healing look like?" Interventions supporting community-driven healing programs that prioritize collective rights are not consistently supported under the Indian Child Welfare Act (1978) and the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act (1990), as these legal tools have not resolved on-going conceptual issues of group rights, trauma, memory, and healing. Recognizing that truth needs to be told, and discomfort is a necessary part of healing, the speaker and hosts seek to understand more fully pathways for recognizing and addressing harms.

Watch recording HERE