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September 2022 Newsletter

Boozhoo Jayek (Hello friends),


I write to extend a warm welcome as UCLA returns to campus for the fall term. Here at the Native Nations Law and Policy Center we are trying to keep cool amid an unprecedented heatwave, and we hope you are all keeping safe as well.


Despite the weather, we are delighted to start the fall semester and welcome our incoming class of students and announce exciting programmatic news. Please read on to hear about my role as Special Advisor to the Chancellor on Native American and Indigenous Affairs at UCLA, where I will work along with Prof. Shannon Speed to advance Native initiatives on campus and beyond.


The NNLPC is also undergoing exciting changes. As detailed below, Lauren van Schilfgaarde (Cochiti Pueblo) is joining UCLA School of Law and American Indian Studies as a tenure-track faculty member. Mica Llerandi (Diné/Navajo) will join us as the new

San Manuel Band of Mission Indians Director of the Tribal Legal Development Clinic, and Alex Fay will serve as the inaugural Richard M. Milanovich Fellow in Law, supported by a generous gift from the Agua Caliente Band of Cahuilla Indians.


Due to the incredible generosity of the Federated Indians of the Graton Rancheria, we welcome four new Graton Scholars to UCLA School of Law and also announce the establishment by the Tribe of two new chairs in Native American Law. Chairman Greg Sarris will also honor us by visiting UCLA School of Law this fall as a Regents’ Professor, where he will engage with the Native community at the Law School and campus-wide. More information about those exciting events will be announced shortly.


You can read about all these announcements below, as well as get more information on a featured event highlighting the pending Supreme Court decision on Haaland v. Brackeen, a case that will have repercussions throughout Indian country.


We are looking forward to an exciting year, and we cannot wait to see you – virtually or in person – soon!


Miigwetch, (Thank you)


Angela R. Riley (Citizen Potawatomi Nation)

Professor of Law and American Indian Studies

Director, Native Nations Law and Policy Center

Special Advisor to the Chancellor on Native American and Indigenous Affairs


Angela Riley named special advisor to the chancellor on Native American and Indigenous affairs


Professor Angela R. Riley, jointly with Professor Shannon Speed, has been appointed as UCLA’s special advisor to the chancellor on Native American and Indigenous affairs.


As special advisors, they will help shape UCLA’s efforts to “respect both the historic culture and the contemporary presence of Native American and Indigenous peoples throughout California, and especially in the Los Angeles area.”

They will work with UCLA to counsel and support the new Native American and Pacific Islander Bruins Rising Initiative.

NNLPC NEWS

NNLPC Director Professor Angela R. Riley will be a speaker at Eleventh Annual John Paul Stevens Lecture in October. The lecture attracts over 2,000 people to CU Boulder’s Macky Auditorium and is streamed to a national audience. 


Professor Lauren van Schilfgaarde co-authored "Tribal Nations and Abortion Access: A Path Forward", an article (forthcoming in the Harvard Journal of Law and Gender) that outlines the legal realities of providing abortion care in Indian country, particularly in the context of avoiding state prohibitions.


Professor Carole Goldberg is a member of UCLA’s Campus Honorary Naming Advisory Committee and spoke to the UCLA Newsroom and Daily Bruin about UCLA’s final plan for the honorary naming, renaming and unnaming process of campus spaces.


The Native Nations Law and Policy Center is now on Twitter and LinkedIn! Join us there, and on Facebook or Instagram to stay updated on news and events.

NNLPC NEW HIRES


San Manuel Band of Mission Indians Tribal Legal Development Clinic Director

Mica Llerandi



Mica Llerandi (Diné/Navajo) is the San Manuel Band of Mission Indians Director of the UCLA Tribal Legal Development Clinic at UCLA School of Law. She previously worked as a Senior Attorney at California Tribal Families Coalition where she worked on Indian Child Welfare Act (ICWA), tribal child welfare, and California dependency matters.


Llerandi was a staff attorney at California Indian Legal Services where she worked on a variety of legal matters, including American Indian Probate Reform Act wills, ICWA cases, administering tribal elections, and code development. Llerandi also previously worked as a domestic violence attorney on the Navajo Nation with DNA-People's Legal Services, as a deputy prosecutor with the Gila River Indian Community, and as a guardian ad litem on the Salt River Pima-Maricopa Indian Community. She also served as an attorney with Children’s Legal Services of San Diego where she represented minors in dependency cases.


Llerandi received her B.A. at Yale University and her J.D. at University of Arizona James E. Rogers College of Law.

Richard M. Milanovich Fellow

Alex Fay




Alexandra Fay is the inaugural Richard M. Milanovich Fellow at the Native Nations Law and Policy Center of UCLA School of Law. Her primary research interest concerns criminal justice in Indian country. Her other research areas include tribal co-management, food sovereignty, and water rights. In all her projects, she relies on critical methods drawn from critical race theory and political ecology.


Fay received her B.A. magna cum laude at Columbia University, and her J.D. from Yale Law School. At Yale, she was an editor for the Yale Journal of Law & Feminism. She was also the recipient of a Fulbright scholarship, for which she taught English at Penza State University in Penza, Russia.


Fay's first publication is forthcoming in the Yale Law & Policy Review.

Two faculty chairs in Native American Law and Policy are endowed


UCLA School of Law received a gift of $4.265 million from the Federated Indians of Graton Rancheria. This generous gift establishes two faculty chairs in Native American law and policy that are endowed in the honor of Distinguished Professor Carole Goldberg and Federated Indians of Graton Rancheria Tribal Chairman Greg Sarris. Read more about this generous gift here.

2022-2023 GRATON SCHOLARS

The Federated Indians of Graton Rancheria established the Graton Scholarship in 2020, which provides a three-year, full-tuition scholarship to students interested in pursuing legal careers in Native American law. The Graton scholars also receive $10,000 a year to defray living expenses in addition to tuition.


We welcome our second cohort, who will become part of a thriving network of students, professors, alumni, and legal professionals working on the cutting edge of the fields of tribal law, federal Indian law, and international Indigenous rights.


Leila Bathke

(Member of the Navajo Nation born for the Tsenjikini clan)


Leila Bathke is a new J.D. Candidate in the UCLA Class of 2025 who has been bestowed with the honor of receiving the Graton scholarship. At the young age of 20, Bathke received her Bachelors of Arts at UCLA in American Indian Studies in 2021. During her undergraduate career, she worked for two years at the UCLA American Indian Recruitment project where she mentored and tutored Native American students in grades K-14. She also interned at the Fernandeño Tataviam Band of Mission Indians Tribal Government office helping with the social media and outreach team. For many years she has had a volunteer position as a facilitator of a youth group dedicated to doing community service while growing their individual spiritual intelligences. Leila is very passionate about working towards justice across all underprivileged intersectionalities, leading her to choose the Critical Race Studies specialization at UCLA Law. 

Mary Cruz

(Zapotec)


Mary Cruz is a 1L Graton Scholar, member of the David J. Epstein Program in Public Interest Law and Policy, and Critical Race Studies Program at UCLA Law. She earned a B.A. in Politics and Latin American Studies from the University of San Francisco. Prior to law school Mary worked at the Durfee Foundation where she supported Los Angeles based nonprofit organizations and leaders. In this role she helped launch the Lark Awards, a grant which funds collective care and renewal of BIPOC staff at grassroots nonprofits to combat burnout in the sector. Prior to Durfee, Mary worked with the California Immigrant Policy Center where she supported their government affairs, policy, and advocacy work in Sacramento. In addition, she has worked to address the intersections of social inequities impacting immigrant and low-income communities at organizations including La Raza Centro Legal, the University of San Francisco law clinic and the Law Offices of Curiel & Parker. Mary’s commitment to social change lies at the intersection of immigrant justice, Indigenous rights, and language access stemming from her experience growing up in a Zapotec migrant family and community.

Aine Lawlor


Aine grew up in Helena, Montana and attended Bowdoin College in Maine. Throughout college, she studied Indigenous rights on the international level with a focus on environmental law and policy in the Arctic. She spent numerous years as an intern for the Arctic Rivers Project. Following graduation, Aine continued to pursue these interests and she worked for the Democratic Staff in the U.S. House Natural Resources Committee where she contributed to various projects related to Indian country, energy development, and environmental justice. At UCLA Law, Aine plans to focus on the intersection between Indigenous rights and environmental law. Upon graduating law school, Aine would like to work in the natural resources field to help provide legal and political support to Native communities and Indigenous peoples and work to co-create a more equitable and just future.

Kyler McVoy

(Member of the Miami Tribe of Oklahoma)


Kyler, 25, is an Indiana native and proud member of the Miami Tribe of Oklahoma. Kyler attended Indiana University for his undergraduate studies, where he received a Bachelor's degree in Political Science and Japanese. Since graduating, Kyler has worked in a variety of fields aimed at protecting vulnerable people, including non-profits, government agencies, and a law firm representing disabled veterans. Kyler is beginning his 1L term as one of four Graton Scholars for the class of 2025. After graduating, Kyler hopes to pursue a legal career in Federal Indian Law or in labor law, including worker's rights and organizing.

NALSA BOARD

Our newly elected NALSA Board is excited to get to work! The objectives of the Native American Law Students Association at UCLA are to provide a support network for Native American law students and to create a base from which work can be done for the advancement of Native peoples. In addition, the Association strives to foster better communication among Native American law students, the Native American community, and the general public by providing a forum for the discussion of current Native American issues. Stayed tuned for future newsletters as we highlight each board member.

EVENTS

In anticipation of one of the potentially most influential Indian law cases in recent memory, UCLA Law’s Native Nations Law and Policy Center will be hosting a virtual debrief speaker event immediately following the oral argument in Brackeen v. Haaland.

Click here to RSVP

Watch recordings of past events HERE

Heather Morphew writes the NNLPC newsletter with editing from Angela Riley and Lauren van Schilfgaarde. Please send any feedback to nativenationslaw@law.ucla.edu

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