Category Archives: Professors

Talking Stick Podcast – Conversation with Stacy Leeds

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In this month’s episode of the Talking Stick, Conversation with Stacy Leeds, host Derrick Beetso (’10) gets to know visiting Professor Stacy Leeds who taught federal Indian law at ASU Law for the fall 2019 semester. The Vice Chancellor for Economic Development, Dean Emeritus and Professor at the University of Arkansas discusses her recent experience as the Salt River Pima-Maricopa Indian Community Distinguished Visiting Indian Law Professor at the ASU College of Law, as well as current work she is undertaking which looks at the legal underpinnings of the Indian Civil Rights Act.

Listen to the podcast here.

Final Class Guest Speaker

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At Professor Trevor Reed’s celebratory dinner in honor of the end of semester, Shawn Attakai (’00) was invited to present on the importance of preserving culture as a wrap-up of Reed’s class on Nov. 22. Attakai gave an extensive look into how Navajo traditions and the outlook on those traditions have changed over time.

Thank you for the captivating presentation!

ILP Professors & their Tribal Ties

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We are so much stronger when we know effective work is being done so close to home and our ILP faculty are truly instrumental in their work and with their tribes.

Professor Patty Ferguson-Bohnee (Pointe-au-Chien) has been advocating for her tribe to be federally recognized for years. 

Beside the 573 federally recognized tribes, Pointe-au-Chien is one of the nearly 300 who have not been permitted that status according to federal criteria. Federal recognition allows for self-government and other permits that are restricted from federally unrecognized tribes.

Ferguson-Bohnee is featured in an MSNBC video that discusses the need for tribal recognition, which Pointe-au-Chien has been pursuing for over 20 years. Watch the full video here.

In The Eastern Shawnee Tribe of Oklahoma: Resilience through Adversity, Professor Robert Miller (Eastern Shawnee) wrote the chapter, “Tribal, Federal, and State Laws Impacting the Eastern Shawnee Tribe, 1812 to 1945,” in which he discussed the legal and constitutional history of his tribe. 

Despite the distinct laws that separated the Eastern Shawnee Tribe into at least five separate nations in the 18th century, the Mixed Band of Senecas and Shawnees “operated under established governmental leaders, laws, governing mechanisms and traditional practices” in the early 19th century. 

While going through the history when the U.S. government began to take over, Miller notes every important legal development and act made by the tribal governments and the federal government that has been recorded.

“The Eastern Shawnee Tribe has governed itself and its people since time immemorial,” Miller said in his chapter. “The Eastern Shawnee people are citizens of three political entities: the United States, the states in which they are domiciled and the Eastern Shawnee Tribe. The Eastern Shawnee nation continues today to exercise its inherent sovereign powers and to govern its territory, its citizens and all who enter its jurisdiction.”

Professor Trevor Reed (Hopi) has conducted extensive research about his tribe’s struggle to reclaim culture from museums, archives, universities, government institutions, and more.
In his upcoming publication Reclaiming Ownership of the Indigenous Voice: The Hopi Music Repatriation Project in the Oxford Handbook of Musical Repatriation, Reed discusses his efforts to reclaim Hopi ceremonial song recordings and their associated intellectual property rights back to the Hopi Tribe.

In his repatriation work, he poses the following questions: “is repatriation best conceived through an appeal to property principles, or are there other principles of ownership and circulation on which repatriation might be more effectively based? And, if Indigenous principles should be the basis for the ownership and circulation of the archived Indigenous voice, to what extent should repatriating institutions be engaged in Indigenous “community politics” as part of their repatriation efforts?” More on this publication will be coming soon.

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Miranda Cyr
Communications Aide, Indian Legal Program, ASU Law

ILP Faculty Tribal Court Judges

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Our dutiful faculty have many responsibilities in addition to teaching at ASU Law.

Professor Patty Ferguson-Bohnee is an associate judge for the Hualapai Tribal Court in
Peach Springs, Arizona.

“I was appointed Associate Justice on the Hualapai Court of Appeals in 2015,”
Ferguson-Bohnee said. “Tribal judges must have a strong handle of the Tribal
law and should spend time learning the Tribe’s law to be effective. Tribal
courts shouldn’t be a carbon copy of state and federal courts. Tribal courts
are really a pillar of Tribe’s sovereignty and self-determination. I’ve
learned a lot from listening to the practitioner’s arguments, and conferring
with my colleagues.”

Professor Robert Miller is a justice and chief justice on the court of
appeals for the Confederated Tribes of the Grand Ronde Indian Community, and
was appointed the interim chief justice for the Pascua Yaqui Tribe Court of
Appeals.

Miller has been a tribal court judge since 1994. He was hired as a pro tem
appellate judge with the Northwest Intertribal Court System based in Washington
just three years out of law school. “Judging gives one an entirely different
viewpoint on litigation and of the operation of courts than just acting as an
attorney,” Miller said. “Many Indian nations still need legally trained judges,
and all tribes will continue to need such judges in the future.”

Professor Paul Bender is the chief judge of the Fort McDowell Supreme
Court, chief judge of the San Carlos Apache Court of Appeals, justice of Salt
River Pima-Maricopa Court of Appeals, and justice of the Tonto Apache Court of
Appeals.

Bender started his pathway to tribal judging in the late 1980s with the Hopi Court
of Appeals. “I got involved with tribal courts when I was dean of the law
school [ASU Law] and we decided to put together an Indian Law Program, which
has matured into the current ILP,” he explained. “I did a study of the Hopi
court at the tribe’s request as the ILP began, and that led to their asking me
to be on their court. Invitations from the other tribes followed. I was
teaching Indian Law when I started tribal judging, and it helped a lot to
improve my understanding of tribal law in connection with that course.”

Talking Stick Podcast – Understanding Water: A Policy Discussion

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The latest podcast! 🎧

This episode includes an important discussion on water security with ASU Law Professor Rhett Larson. The intersections between climate policy and water security offer us a new framework under which to consider global issues – one that places water security at the forefront. Please join us for this discussion as we unravel various water related issues, including stream adjudications, state based water laws versus federal water laws, water markets and much more.

To listen, click here.