Patty Ferguson-BohneePatty Ferguson-Bohnee has been selected for the 2009 Equal Justice Works Outstanding Law School Faculty Award, which is given to young faculty of less than five years experience who are doing great work in public service.The award will be presented at the 2009 Equal Justice Works Awards Luncheon on Oct. 24 in Washington, D.C., at which Harold Koh, Legal Adviser of the U.S. Department of State and former Yale Law School Dean, will be the keynote speaker.

“This is a great honor and a tribute to Patty’s great work at the Clinic, as well as the dedication of the students who have participated in the Clinic over the past few years,” said Dean Paul Schiff Berman.

Rebecca Tsosie, Executive Director of the Indian Legal Program, praised Ferguson-Bohnee’s work.“Patty’s leadership of our Indian Legal Clinic has been absolutely exceptional,” Tsosie said.

Ferguson-Bohnee has substantial experience in Indian law, election law and policy matters, voting rights, and status clarification of tribes. She has testified before the United States Senate Committee on Indian Affairs and the Louisiana State Legislature regarding tribal recognition, and has successfully assisted four Louisiana tribes in obtaining state recognition.

Ferguson-Bohnee has represented tribal clients in administrative, state, federal, and tribal courts, as well as before state and local governing bodies and proposed revisions to the Real Estate Disclosure Reports to include tribal provisions. She has assisted in complex voting rights litigation on behalf of tribes, and she has drafted state legislative and congressional testimony on behalf of tribes with respect to voting rights’ issues.She is a member of the Pointe-au-Chien Indian tribe.

Rebecca TsosieProfessor Rebecca Tsosie, Executive Director of the College’s Indian Legal Program, and Andrew Askland, Director of the College’s Center for the Study of Law, Science, & Technology were featured prominently in the September 2009 edition of ASU Magazine.
Tsosie is pictured on the publication’s cover, and is featured in the main piece, “Sustaining Change: ASU researchers discover keys to promoting habits for a healthier planet” by Lee Gimpel. In a sidebar, “Framing Change,” Tsosie points out that many of the world’s surviving indigenous cultures are the most susceptible to climate change because their lands often are likely to experience drought or flooding. This puts them at risk for extinction, she explains, and therefore, they have, or should have, a disproportionate interest in sustainability.
In the same sidebar, Askland talks about his research into the legal framework around sustainability, and for example, how the preferential treatment that certain power sources have enjoyed might change with regulation that tilts the balance toward wind and solar sources.

Andrew AsklandTo read the full article, click here.Tsosie teaches in the areas of Indian law, Property, Bioethics, and Critical Race Theory, as well as seminars in International Indigenous Rights and in the College’s Tribal Policy, Law, and Government Master of Laws program. She has written and published widely on doctrinal and theoretical issues related to tribal sovereignty, environmental policy and cultural rights, and is the author of many prominent articles dealing with cultural resources and cultural pluralism. Tsosie is the co-author with Robert Clinton and Carole Goldberg of a federal Indian law casebook, and her current research deals with Native rights to genetic resources. She annually speaks at several national conferences on tribal sovereignty, self-determination, and tribal rights to environmental and cultural resources.
Askland teaches courses at the College of Law in Privacy and Economics and the Law. He also has research interests in Environmental Ethics and Bioethics and in Moral and Political Theory. Askland is a member of the American Philosophical Association and served on the program committee of its Pacific Division.

Carl Artman Carl Artman, Director of the Economic Development in Indian Country Program, will be the keynote speaker at the 2009 Business Development in Indian Country Conference at the Potawatomi Bingo Casino in Milwaukee, Wisc., on Sept. 21-24.

The conference is organized by the Potawatomi Business Development Corp., and will bring together tribal and business leaders from across the region and nation to share experiences and ideas for building sustainable tribal economies.

Artman, who is a shareholder at Godfrey & Kahn, also served as the Assistant Secretary of Indian Affairs for the U.S. Department of the Interior. He will identify various stimulus opportunities for Indian Country. Eugenio Aleman, vice president and senior economist for Wells Fargo, will also provide a keynote on the banking and investing trends in 2009-2010.
To register for the conference, go to http://www.bussproductions.com/ or call (651) 917-2301.

When Carl J. Artman was in second grade, he watched the Watergate hearings on television.
“I saw the people whispering in the ears of the senators, and I knew I wanted to be one of those people,” he said.

Artman, who realized that dream of leadership in Washington, D.C., by becoming Assistant Secretary of Indian Affairs for the U.S. Department of the Interior and the Department’s Associate Solicitor for Indian Affairs, recently joined the Sandra Day O’Connor College of Law as a professor and Director of the Economic Development in Indian Country Program.

Artman, an enrolled member of the Oneida Tribe of Indians of Wisconsin, spent much of his childhood visiting relatives on the reservation. “I always knew I was an Indian growing up,” he said.

A self-defined “policy wonk,” Artman considered journalism, reading All the President’s Men, Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein’s description of reporting the Watergate scandal that led to President Nixon’s resignation.

But he also read the writings of Jean-Jacques Rousseau and John Locke and the letters of Thomas Jefferson and Benjamin Franklin. And he learned that the Oneida Nation was one of the Five Nations of the Iroquois Confederacy, which is said to have influenced the Articles of Confederation and the Constitution. And that the tribe supplied corn that kept President Washington’s troops from starving at Valley Forge in 1777.

“I was honored to know that my tribe helped create what we have today,” he said.
And he chose the path of government service.

Artman has worked in policy-making on Capitol Hill, lobbied for his tribe, worked on business deals for the Oneida Nation, including a telecom business, developed a high-tech business and eventually became Chief Counsel for his tribe. After he left the Department of the Interior, Artman built an Indian law practice at Godfrey & Kahn in Milwaukee, Wisc.

“When I was in law school, there was not a lot of focus on Indian law,” Artman said. “I always thought I would end up in Indian Country, preferably working for my tribe, but I never felt compelled to follow a strict Indian law process.”

Instead, at Washington University School of Law, Artman focused on business and policy, and their intersection with law. He also earned an M.B.A. at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and an LL.M. in Natural Resources and Environmental Law at the University of Denver.

“Everything I’ve done has crossed government, business, management and policy,” he said.
Artman said he began thinking about ASU after Dean Paul Schiff Berman approached him at a conference the Indian Legal Program organized in 2008 about Indian gaming, at which Artman was a presenter.

“I did a lot of research, looking at ASU’s philosophy under President Crow, his vision of the New American University and its entrepreneurship,” Artman said. “I knew that if I had the opportunity to work with students here, they would take what we worked on and translate it into something real.”

Artman said he also was attracted by the Indian Legal Program team, which he said he is proud to join.

“The impact they have leads to endless possibilities,” he said. “It’s readymade to help tribal leaders.”

In addition to teaching, one of Artman’s first projects is planning a national conference on tribal energy economies, which will be held March 25-26.

“It’s about the whole world of energy, coal, natural gas, oil, the whole gamut, spanning all the way to alternative and renewable energies and beyond,” Artman said. “Many tribes are just tapping into their natural resources, and we’ll look at a strategic plan to promote investment and turn them into truly sustainable economies.

“We’ll look at the issues from 10,000 feet, but also in detail. I want tribal leaders – government, business, legal, chiefs of staff – to walk out saying, ‘That was inspirational. I learned what other people are thinking on the subject. There were partners and stakeholders who spoke with us.’ I want it to be a true exchange of ideas.”

Artman’s wife, Wendy, is a senior public relations manager with GroundFloor Media, based in Denver, and they have two young sons.