Indigenous Rights Movements & the Law

A relentless offensive against minority student recruiting and retention threatens more than Native American participation in school. Advocates for such outreach say it affects community well-being and even the health of Native citizens. We'll hear from proponents for Native student achievement about President Donald Trump's "Compact for Higher Education" and the latest trends in Native enrollment. Also in our discussion today is a harrowing story of survival. As the nation marks the 50th anniversary of the storied wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald in Lake Superior, there is another remarkable account of a group of Native fishermen caught in the same storm that day. We’ll hear from Interlochen Public Radio reporter Ellie Katz who talked to some of the men for the Points North podcast.

The University of Arizona and Casino Del Sol, an enterprise of the Pascua Yaqui Tribe, announced a 20-year naming rights agreement for Arizona Stadium valued at more than $60 million, the largest such agreement in Big 12 Conference history.

The standard, which advises scientists and professionals how to record provenance for data about and from Indigenous Peoples' nations, communities and territories, is the first of its kind and takes effect during Native American Heritage Month in the U.S.

How chronic underfunding of tribal colleges and how states profit from Indigenous trust lands, highlighting failures in federal accountability.

The renowned Navajo artist donated the lithographs to the university in the 1990s, with the intent to support Native American graduate students.

The Haury Professorship in Indigenous Resilience advances the university's world-class Indigenous environmental resilience research, education and outreach.

"A one-of-a-kind lyrical and fast-paced memoir of the frontlines and trenches of Native liberation in the Four Corners and Southwest in the 1970s. From the late summer of 1972 to the late summer of 1974, John Redhouse and many other Red Power activists put everything on the line to organize mass movements and direct actions for Native liberation. It was an extraordinary time defined by stunning victories and intense struggles. In just a few short years, Redhouse and his contemporaries changed Navajo and Native people's collective destinies. So profound was their impact that it can still be felt fifty years later. Written in the first-person with a spirit of generosity and witness, John Redhouse describes the fever pitch of the times, focusing on the racist and exploitative bordertowns in the Four Corners area of the Southwest region. He interweaves a piercing critique of violence against Navajo people in reservations bordertowns with a condemnation of the violence that rapidly growing mineral extraction in and around the Navajo Nation introduced to Navajo life. As a firsthand participant in some of the most important twentieth-century struggles against this manifold violence, Redhouse is one of only a few grassroots intellectuals who can tell this story. [This book] brings readers to the enduring struggle for Native liberation, traced over half a century ago, where John Redhouse and many more led a revolution that continues to this day."--Back cover.

Georgetown issued a formal apology to the Cheyenne River Sioux Tribe after returning a hair clipping believed to belong to Chief Spotted Elk, a 19th-century leader of the Mnicoujou Lakota, to the Cheyenne River Sioux Tribe.

Host June Grasso speaks with prominent attorneys and legal scholars, analyzing major legal issues and cases in the news.

Host June Grasso speaks with prominent attorneys and legal scholars, analyzing major legal issues and cases in the news.

Last week, Dr. Suresh Garimella, the 23rd president of the University of Arizona made his way north to visit the University of Arizona’s interests in Yavapai County. He toured University

University of Alaska Fairbanks Chancellor Mike Sfraga said the funding cuts “will have a substantial and negative impact on a large number of Alaskans, including our Alaska Native students.”

The University of Arizona is making history with a record $257 million investment in partnerships with Native American communities.

University of Arizona President Suresh Garimella and senior members of his leadership team visited Yavapai County to reinforce the institution's land-grant mission of service in every corner of the state.

The proposed elimination of the National Endowment for the Humanities threatens Indigenous libraries and arts programs.

Years-long court challenges attempting to stop the federal government’s transfer of sacred tribal land in Arizona to a copper mining company show how US religious protections haven’t been equally applied, academics and attorneys say.

The new policy is one of several in response to a state law that aims to eliminate any mention of diversity, equity and inclusion at public universities.

Megan K. Friedel, assistant professor and lead archivist of University Libraries, discusses her involvement in the Society of American Archivists Archival

Abstract The United Nations World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) held a diplomatic conference in May 2024 where participants adopted a historic n ...

U of A scholars Rebecca Tsosie and Michael Kotutwa Johnson urge society to embrace Indigenous seed stewardship as key to resilience and survival. Their new UCLA Law Review article, “The Seed is the Law,” calls for protecting heirloom seeds and traditional knowledge through Tribal, U.S., and international law.

Judges put the transfer on hold while lawsuits over the sacred Apache site move forward.

President Donald Trump took a strong stance on Tuesday on the ongoing Resolution Copper dispute, issuing pointed criticism of the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals following its decision to temporarily halt the planned land transfer.

Federal funding cuts could put tribal colleges and universities like Tohono O’odham Community College in southern Arizona at risk of closing.

Keith Richotte models his narrative on the Native tradition of the trickster story — parables of creation and change where an unreliable narrator dupes the listener into reshaping their perception of reality.

Indigenous leaders warn higher education institutions will close if the funding-slashing 2026 budget proposal passes

This month I interviewed Kelti McGloin, our brilliant Library Intern at the Sir James Dunn Law Library, about the development of her style guide, Best Practices for Writing About Indigenous Peoples in the Canadian Legal Context: An Evolving Style Guide for the Schulich School of Law at Dalhousie University. Share a bit about your background […]

"A sweeping and trenchant exploration of the history of Native American boarding schools in the U.S., and the legacy of abuse wrought by systemic attempts to use education as a tool through which to destroy Native culture. From the mid-19th century to the late 1930s, tens of thousands of Native children were pulled from their families to attend boarding schools that claimed to help create opportunity for these children to pursue professions outside their communities and otherwise "assimilate" into American life. In reality, these boarding schools--sponsored by the US Government but often run by various religious orders with little to no regulation--were an insidious attempt to destroy tribes, break up families, and stamp out the traditions of generations of Native people. Children were beaten for speaking their native languages, forced to complete menial tasks in terrible conditions, and utterly deprived of love and affection. Ojibwe journalist Mary Pember's mother was forced to attend one of these institutions--a seminary in Wisconsin, and the impacts of her experience have cast a pall over Mary's own childhood, and her relationship with her mother. Highlighting both her mother's experience and the experiences of countless other students at such schools, their families, and their children, Medicine River paints a stark portrait of communities still reckoning with the legacy of acculturation that has affected generations of Native communities. Through searing interviews and assiduous historical reporting, Pember traces the evolution and continued rebirth of a culture whose country has been seemingly intent upon destroying it"-- Provided by publisher.