Professor Carl Artman defended the Santa Ynez Band of Chumash Indians’ right to expand their reservation, calling the protesting locals “a cannibalistic frenzy of myopic reactionism,” according to an article in The Los Angles Times on Sept. 25.

Artman, Director of Economic Development in Indian Country, said during a Sept. 16 panel, titled “You Heard the Fiction, Now Hear the Facts,” the push from critics to deny the Chumash Indians’ more land was due to rumors and a hostile local press.

Artman’s quote was also picked up by the Santa Maria Times and the Santa Barbara Independent.