Social Movements & the Law

"In the summer of 2017, twenty-two-year-old Savanna LaFontaine-Greywind vanished. A week after she disappeared, police arrested the white couple who lived upstairs from Savanna and emerged from their apartment carrying an infant girl. The baby was Savanna's, but Savanna's body would not be found for days. The horrifying crime sent shock waves far beyond Fargo, North Dakota, where it occurred, and helped expose the sexual and physical violence Native American women and girls have endured since the country's colonization. With pathos and compassion, Searching for Savanna confronts this history of dehumanization toward Indigenous women and the government's complicity in the crisis. Featuring in-depth interviews, personal accounts, and trial analysis, Searching for Savanna investigates these injustices and the decades-long struggle by Native American advocates for meaningful change."--Amazon.com

The most enduring feature of U.S. history is the presence of Native Americans, yet most histories focus on Europeans and their descendants. This long practice of ignoring Indigenous history is changing, however, with a new generation of scholars insists that any full American history address the struggle, survival, and resurgence of American Indian nations. Indigenous history is essential to understanding the evolution of modern America. Ned Blackhawk interweaves five centuries of Native and non‑Native histories, from Spanish colonial exploration to the rise of Native American self-determination in the late twentieth century. In this transformative synthesis he shows that • European colonization in the 1600s was never a predetermined success; • Native nations helped shape England’s crisis of empire; • the first shots of the American Revolution were prompted by Indian affairs in the interior; • California Indians targeted by federally funded militias were among the first casualties of the Civil War; • the Union victory forever recalibrated Native communities across the West; • twentieth-century reservation activists refashioned American law and policy. Blackhawk’s retelling of U.S. history acknowledges the enduring power, agency, and survival of Indigenous peoples, yielding a truer account of the United States and revealing anew the varied meanings of America.

"Immigration presented a constitutional and political problem in the nineteenth-century United States. Until the 1870s, the federal government played only a very limited role in regulating immigration. The states controlled mobility within and across their borders and set their own rules for community membership. This book demonstrates how the existence, abolition, and legacies of slavery shaped immigration policy as it moved from the local to the national level. Throughout the antebellum era, defenders of slavery feared that if Congress had power to control immigration, it could also regulate the movement of free black people and perhaps even the interstate slave trade. The Civil War removed the political and constitutional obstacles to a national immigration policy. Admission remained the norm for European immigrants until the 1920s, but Chinese immigrants fell into a different category. Starting in the 1870s, the federal government excluded Chinese laborers, deploying techniques of registration, punishment, and deportation first used against free black people in the antebellum South. To justify these measures, the Supreme Court ruled that authority over immigration was inherent in national sovereignty and required no constitutional justification. The federal government continues to control admissions and exclusions today, while the states play a double-edged role in regulating immigrants' lives, depending on their politics and location. Some monitor and punish immigrants; others offer sanctuary and refuse to act as agents of federal law enforcement. By examining the history of immigration in a slaveholding republic, this book reveals the tangled origins of border control, incarceration, deportation, and ongoing tensions between local and federal authority in the United States"--

"This book illustrates the evolution and the current content of indigenous rights with respect to natural resources under customary international law, the possibility and the practical consequences to conceive those rights in terms of permanent sovereignty over natural resources and, finally, the latest developments on the implementation of such rights at the domestic level"--

"In the essays collected here, twelve scholars explore how Native peoples, despite the upheavals caused by the European intrusion, often thrived after contact, preserving their sovereignty, territory, and culture and shaping indigenous borderlands across the Americas, from the sixteenth-century U.S. South to twentieth-century Bolivia. The book defines borderlands as spaces where diverse populations interact, cross-cultural exchanges are frequent and consequential, and no polity or community holds dominion"--;"Pervasive myths of European domination and indigenous submission in the Americas receive an overdue corrective in this far-reaching revisionary work. Despite initial upheavals caused by the European intrusion, Native people often thrived after contact, preserving their sovereignty, territory, and culture and shaping indigenous borderlands across the hemisphere. Borderlands, in this context, are spaces where diverse populations interact, cross-cultural exchanges are frequent and consequential, and no polity or community holds dominion. Within the indigenous borderlands of the Americas, as this volume shows, Native peoples exercised considerable power, often retaining control of the land, and remaining paramount agents of historical transformation after the European incursion. Conversely, European conquest and colonialism were typically slow and incomplete, as the newcomers struggled to assert their authority and implement policies designed to subjugate Native societies and change their beliefs and practices. Indigenous Borderlands covers a wide chronological and geographical span, from the sixteenth-century U.S. South to twentieth-century Bolivia, and gathers leading scholars from the United States and Latin America. Drawing on previously untapped or underutilized primary sources, the original essays in this volume document the resilience and relative success of indigenous communities commonly and wrongly thought to have been subordinated by colonial forces, or even vanished, as well as the persistence of indigenous borderlands within territories claimed by people of European descent. Indeed, numerous indigenous groups remain culturally distinct and politically autonomous. Hemispheric in its scope, unique in its approach, this work significantly recasts our understanding of the important roles played by Native agents in constructing indigenous borderlands in the era of European imperialism. Chapters 5, 6, 8, and 9 are published with generous support from the Americas Research Network. "--

With a deep, anticolonial and antiracist critique and analysis of what “conservation” currently is, Decolonize Conservation presents an alternative vision–one already working–of the most effective and just way to fight against biodiversity loss and climate change. Through the voices of largely silenced or invisibilized Indigenous Peoples and local communities, the devastating consequences of making 30 percent of the globe “Protected Areas,” and other so-called “Nature-Based Solutions” are made clear. Evidence proves indigenous people understand and manage their environment better than anyone else. Eighty percent of the Earth’s biodiversity is in tribal territories and when indigenous peoples have secure rights over their land, they achieve at least equal if not better conservation results at a fraction of the cost of conventional conservation programs. But in Africa and Asia, governments and NGOs are stealing vast areas of land from tribal peoples and local communities under the false claim that this is necessary for conservation. As the editors write, “This is colonialism pure and simple: powerful global interests are shamelessly taking land and resources from vulnerable people while claiming they are doing it for the good of humanity.” The powerful collection of voices from the groundbreaking “Our Land, Our Nature” congress takes us to the heart of the climate justice movement and the struggle for life and land across the globe. With Indigenous Peoples and their rights at its center, the book exposes the brutal and deadly reality of colonial and racist conservation for people around the world, while revealing the problems of current climate policy approaches that do nothing to tackle the real causes of environmental destruction.

Indiana school librarians worry a new law banning materials that are “obscene” or “harmful to minors” will cause them to essentially self-censor when picking books, cutting LGBTQ students off from material they might connect with. Supporters of the law say it will protect children from pornographic…

Perkins Coie has been named the top law firm for women and diversity by Seramount, formerly known as Working Mother Media.

Discover the top online resources for LGBTQIA+ college students in this comprehensive guide. Empower your success and find your community.

How to identify and understand barriers to determine which domain of emotional intelligence we must increase.

By Rebecca Plevel (Follow us on LinkedIn) Please note that this post discusses suicide and its impact on survivors. Some individuals may find these topics distressing and triggering. If you ne…

The United States entered a new era with the end of the pandemic-era Title 42 expulsions policy. The government’s hopes of maintaining order at the U.S.-Mexico border post-Title 42 may be complicated by factors including authorities’ limited capacity, ongoing litigation, and cooperation from other countries. This article reviews the Biden administration's changing border policies and possible challenges ahead.

KPMG’s head of talent and culture offers three pillars for equipping managers and all employees with resources to manage mental well-being.

The Path to Pride The year is 2001. The legal profession in Ontario is in disarray after several law students at the University of Toronto’s law school were caught fraudulently altering their grades to secure prestigious Bay Street summer positions. Many of these students were disciplined. Yet, in the eyes of the legal priesthood, this […]

By Charles Bjork This year’s annual meeting of the American Society of International Law in Washington, D.C., concluded with a special panel discussion on Protecting Cultural Heritage in Conflict Z…

Stephanie Russo Carroll, associate director of the Native Nations Institute, has focused her career on encouraging institutions to adopt policies and practices that recognize Indigenous Peoples'

Target on Wednesday said it was removing some products that celebrate Pride Month after the company and its employes became the focus of a “volatile” anti-LGBTQ campaign.

The death in Border Patrol custody of an 8-year-old Panamanian girl is the second child migrant fatality in two weeks under government supervision, raising questions about how prepared authorities are to address medical emergencies of people arriving after an often-exhausting journey. A rush to the border before pandemic-related asylum limits known as Title 42 expired fueled a sharp increase of people in custody. The growing presence of families and unaccompanied children over the last decade presents authorities with enormous responsibilities for medical care. At least six children died in custody during a roughly year-long period from 2018 to 2019.

Authorities say U.S. Border Patrol agents answering reports of gunfire shot and killed a man on a tribal reservation in southern Arizona after he threw something and abruptly raised his arm. The Thursday night death of Raymond Mattia is under investigation by the FBI and Tohono O’odham Nation. A statement Monday by U.S. Customs and Border Protection says tribal police had asked Border Patrol agents for help in responding to a report of shots fired near the home of a man in a tribal community near the U.S.-Mexico border. The statement says three Border Patrol agents opened fire after encountering a man who threw some kind of object and “abruptly extended” his arm.

Today, Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (“DEI”) practices have become indispensable in almost every legal workplace. DEI practices aim to promote a new notion of professionalism, one where individuals from all walks of life enjoy fair treatment and full participation. “Merry Christmas” has become “Happy Holidays”. Profiles of Black and Asian-looking lawyers surge during Black History […]

Listen to AMERICAN GENOCIDE podcast online for free. Discover podcasts, music and radio stations online now.

Raymond Mattia of the Tohono O’odham Nation in southern Arizona was shot by agents after calling them for assistance

This is text of the closing keynote I gave for the CORE Forum on November 20, 2020.

Marginalisation is both a structural and an epistemic issue. The struggle against exclusion and marginalisation should take place within larger social structures. Moreover, we should address the le...

Reading List Accardi, Maria T., Emily Drabinski, and Alana Kumbier. "Beginning and extending the conversation." Communications in Information Literacy 14, no. 1 (2020): 1. ———Critical Library Instruction : Theories and Methods / Edited by Maria T. Accardi, Emily Drabinski, and Alana Kumbier....

Literary Nonfiction. African American Studies. Politics. Philosophy & Critical Theory. Introduction by Jack Halberstam. In this series of essays, Fred Moten and Stefano Harney draw on the theory and practice of the black radical tradition as it supports, inspires, and extends contemporary social and political thought and aesthetic critique. Today the general wealth of social life finds itself confronted by mutations in the mechanisms of control: the proliferation of capitalist logistics, governance by credit, and the management of pedagogy. Working from and within the social poesis of life in THE UNDERCOMMONS, Moten and Harney develop and expand an array of concepts: study, debt, surround, planning, and the shipped. On the fugitive path of an historical and global blackness, the essays in this volume unsettle and invite the reader to the self-organised ensembles of social life that are launched every day and every night amid the general antagonism of THE UNDERCOMMONS.

This is the first of three sessions where the instructor works with pharmacy students to help then understand how to conduct literature searching and research from an inclusive perspective. The students have already seen the instructor once so emphasis is placed on understanding their current search knowledge, addressing the needs of the group, and then on them exploring how to research topics of patient care with a myriad of voices (not just relying on scholarly works). This is done with many activities and group work.

Let’s Talk About CRT, Let’s Talk About Literacy: Modifying the Framework for Anti-Racist Library Instruction Presenters: Adrianna Martinez, Jamia Williams, Kelleen Maluski, Lalitha Nataraj, Sheila García Mazari, and Talitha Matlin Relevant Theories / Concepts Coloniality in Knowledge Production (...

Roberto Sirvent and Dylan Rodriguez discuss the challenges of sustaining radical liberation movements.