Native Village 

Youth and Education News

April 1, 2006 Issue 166  Volume 3

"Within our culture, our new buffalo is education."  Keith Moore

Tribal college leader appeals for Indian education support
North Dakota: There are 35 tribal colleges in the country.  David Gipp, president of United Tribe Technical College, says the federal government is compromising their success in recruiting and educating Native students.  "My message is simple: culturally appropriate higher education for Indian people works, and Indian people today want quality, culturally appropriate higher education as never before," Gipp told U.S.  Senator Byron Dorgan, vice-chairman of the Indian Affairs Committee.  Gipp, a member of the Standing Rock Sioux, pointed out that the American Indian community is very young, with over half the population under the age of 25.  In addition to serving that segment, Gipp said education is "vitally necessary to allow tribal nations to rebuild their economies, long neglected by the United States.  The skills learned in higher education help rebuild infrastructure and reestablish vital tribal government services, as well as improve local economies and business institutions.  We remain concerned that the present administration does not fully support the financial assistance and scholarship programs, such as Pell grants, that so many of our students need for their education," Gipp said.
Gipp outlined nine key areas Congress must understand regarding Indian education:
1. Tribal colleges and universities need institutional stability.  This includes consistent and adequate funding.
2.  Tribal Colleges need the best technology possible.  Technology is a window to the future of Indian people.
3.  Tribal colleges need the best facilities possible.  Construction funds have lagged far behind student growth. 
4.  The President's Executive Order on tribal colleges and universities needs to be carried out.  Efforts to address this issue have been made to, and been ignored by,  Secretary of Education Margaret Spellings.
5.  Financial assistance and scholarship programs for Indian students have been drastically cut.  The needs of Indian Country cannot take a back seat to the needs of foreign citizens.
6.  Give tribal elementary and secondary schools the tools they need so students can succeed in tribal and non-tribal postsecondary educational institutions. 
7.  Make sure Tribal citizens are successful in non-Indian institutions of higher instruction. 
8. Make sure that the Higher Education Act goes forward as quickly as possible, and that the needs of Indian students are fully recognized and provided for in that Act. 
9.  Set aside funds to help Indian people develop their own scholars and professionals, such as teachers, engineers, scientists, and doctors, to help Indian communities grow and prosper. 
http://www.nativetimes.com/index.asp?action=displayarticle&article_id=7697

Tribal college program honored
North Dakota: Fortune Magazine has named Sitting Bull College as one of 10 “cutting-edge programs for budding entrepreneurs."  "We’re very happy and excited,” said Laurel Vermillion, the college’s interim president. Sitting Bull stresses economic development and business leadership programs so tribal member have the skills to start small businesses.   The college also has a $40,000,000 expansion campaign which will include a $3,400,000 business entrepreneurship center with space for a dozen start-ups.  “It’s entrepreneurship through education,” said Ron Walters, the college’s resource development director.  Sitting Bull is a tribal college on the Standing Rock Indian Reservation. Currently, Standing Rock's unemployment rate is 35% in the summer and 75% in the winter.
http://www.in-forum.com/articles/index.cfm?id=119852

American Indians on the rise in law studies
North Dakota: When Phillip Deloria began his career in American Indian Law,  the U.S. identified only 25 American Indian lawyers.   Deloria, director the University of New Mexico's American Indian Law Center, Inc., said American Indians had grade-point or racial difficulties getting into law school.  "There was a time before Affirmative Action, believe it or not," he said.  UNM allowed Deloria to help students meet the challenges of learning at "law school speed," and the school's success rate jumped from 30% to 95%.  Now, there are nearly 4,000 Indian lawyers across the United States.  Students who study at the UNM's American Indian law Center learn both practical law and laws dealing with tribal jurisdiction.  American Indian law study also addresses sovereignty issues  like rules, regulations and cultural differences best understood by Indian people themselves. Despite its overwhelming success,  the UNM American Indian Law Center still faces criticism.  "Our program causes controversy because, getting Indians to pass law school is part of the lunacy that is the law.  It changes them," Deloria said.  "If you go to law school for three years and it doesn't change you, you should get a refund."  Deloria is a member of the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe and became the Director of the American Indian Law Center in 1972.  He attended law school at Yale University.
IndigenousNewsNetwork@topica.com digest

Harvard, Indian Health Service forge partnership
Massachusetts:  Harvard University and the Indian Health Service are working together to improve the health and wellness of American Indian and Alaska Native people.  "This is a great opportunity for synergy between Harvard's educational mission and IHS's mission to assist and collaborate in raising the physical, mental, social and spiritual health of American Indian and Alaska Native people," said Dennis Norman, faculty chair of Harvard's University Native American Program.  Comparisons between Indian and the rest of the U.S. health status reveals that a 40% increase is needed for IHS funding.  Complicating the situation are modern health problems confronting American Indian and Alaska Native communities.  Death rates for tuberculosis, alcoholism, diabetes, accidents, suicide, and homicide are significantly higher for Indians compared with the U.S.  general population.  Additionally, American Indian and Alaska Native death rates from injuries and auto accidents are 200%-300% higher than the national rates. Suicide and homicide rates are nearly 200% higher.  Through its Native Health Program, HUNAP will address these issues by supporting research, outreach, education, teaching and curriculum development in AI/AN health care and health policy.
H-Amindian Listserv

List of Urban Indian Health Clinics threatened by Bush
In his 2007 budget,  President Bush has proposed eliminating the $33,000,000 that goes to these 34 urban Indian health clinics. At least 17 will most likely have to close if the funding is eliminated.

 http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/03/25/AR2006032500545_pf.html

Backward evolution” spawns ape-like people
Turkey: Uner Tan of Cukurova University Medical School has discovered a genetic defect that may set back the clock on human evolution.  Victims of this condition, called "Unertan Syndrome, " walk on all fours and mouth a primitive language.  This mutation—known to run in one Turkish family—might offer scientists a new glimpse into human origins.  “This syndrome interestingly exhibits prehuman features” and represents “possible backward evolution,” Tan said.    The idea that evolution can run backward isn't new; some scientists say there have been confirmed cases of it in animals. But it’s also a controversial subject and considered hard to prove.  Behaviors of those with Unertan Syndrome:

• Scientists consider the transition to upright walking as the most important event in human evolution. This freed the hands for skilled movements such as throwing and toolmaking. Upright walking became habitual by the age of Homo erectus 1,600,000  years ago.  Modern languages evolved about 40,000 years ago, though Homo erectus likely had a rudimentary form of language.
  View an online video clip:  http://www.neuroquantology.com/2005/04/Tan movie.mpg
  photo and information: http://www.world-science.net/exclusives/060221_unertanfrm.htm
  
  Are You Melungeon, Nuyorican Or What?
  Pennsylvania: Until 2000, the Census required people only one choice of racial category  --  black, white, Asian and Pacific Islander, Native American and "other."  Then, after strong lobbying by multiracial groups, people could identify themselves in more than one category. This decision was influenced by the number of interracial marriages which had jumped from 1% of the population to at least 5%.  Now young people, especially, are opting for the multiracial label.  In 2004, nearly half of all Americans who identified themselves as multiracial were under age 18.  "Society is more diverse today than it was 20 or 30 years ago," said Terrell Jones, a provost at Penn State University.  Other evidence shows that this move toward self-identification is generational.  A study by psychologist Maria Root found that:
  Biracial people born before the 1950-60s Civil Rights movement tended to identify themselves as black;
  Those born during or after that period might identify as black, but also opted for biracial;
  Those between ages 18 - 65 were 500% as likely to identify with more than once race than those over age 65. 
  Pittsburgh Post Gazette
  
    Cherokee Freedmen win tribal citizenship lawsuit
  Oklahoma: The Cherokee Tribe's highest court has ruled that the Cherokee Freedman, descendants of African-American slaves who lived among the tribe, may claim full Cherokee citizenship.    The Judicial Appeals Tribunal said the Freedmen can retain citizenship and tribal privileges despite not having identifiable "Indian" blood.  "If the Cherokee people wish to limit tribal citizenship, and such limitation would terminate the pre-existing citizenship of even one Cherokee citizen, then it must be done in the open," the court wrote.  The court said the only way to legally terminate the Freedmen's citizenship is through the Cherokee constitution.  The current constitution, enforced in 1975, does not limit tribal citizenship by blood.  The Freedmen dispute began in the 1980s when Lucy Allen, 73, a Freedmen descendant, was barred from voting in tribal elections.
  Read Ruling: www.cornsilks.com/b7.html
  The Muskogee Daily Phoenix
  
  Western Shoshone Victorious at UN
  Switzerland:  In a historic and strongly worded decision, the United Nations urged the US  to "freeze", "desist" and "stop" actions being taken or threatened to be taken against the Western Shoshone Peoples. The tribe's land, nearly 60,000,000 acres across Nevada, Utah, Idaho and California, contains most of the U.S. gold supply and is among the world’s largest gold-producing areas.  The U.S. now claims these same lands as "public" or federal lands and wants to open them to the mining industry.  Tribal members say that, for decades, the government has treated them like trespassers on federal property. The government is even aggressively restricting some natives from living and working on their land.  They also warn that further exploitation of native lands will create dangerous environmental problems, including mercury pollution caused by gold mining and potential contamination by nuclear-waste storage sites.  The UN agreed with the Shoshone and called upon the United States to immediately:

  Respect and protect the human rights of the Western Shoshone peoples;  Initiate a dialogue with representatives from the Western Shoshone peoples to find a solution acceptable to them and which complies with their rights; Adopt the following measures until a final decision or settlement is reached on the status, use and occupation of Western Shoshone ancestral lands in accordance with due process of law and the U.S.' obligations under the Convention;  Freeze all efforts to privatize Western Shoshone ancestral lands for transfer to multinational extractive industries and energy developers;  Desist from all activities planned and/or conducted on Western Shoshone ancestral lands; Stop imposing grazing fees, livestock impoundments, hunting, fishing and gathering restrictions and rescind all notices already made.

  The UN proclamation has brought US policies toward Native Americans directly under the scrutiny of the international human-rights regime.  The US has until July 15 this year to respond to the UN Committee. This monumental action challenges the US government's assertion of federal ownership of nearly 90% of Western Shoshone lands.
  www.mytwobeadsworth.com
  
  Lighthorsemen help bust Satan's Disciples
  Oklahoma:  The Lighthorse Police Department helped the BIA and other agencies bust a huge drug ring between Texas and Oklahoma. They sent four officers -- two  K-9 unit officers and two criminal investigators -- to arrest operations.   Over 50 drug runners, known as Satan's Disciples, have been arrested. Officials say more suspects are likely to be taken into custody. The Lighthorse Police Department is the official law enforcement branch of the Chickasaw Nation. The Lighthorse includes 22 officers and multiple support staff.  They assert jurisdiction over the tribe's 13-county area.  "Operations such as this one go a long way toward helping us reach our goal of making this a better, safer place to live,  "said Lighthorse chief Jason O'Neal.
  http://nativetimes.com/index.asp?action=displayarticle&article_id=7629
  
  Native Americans and First Nations discuss border security
  Representatives from the Canadian and American aboriginal peoples,  governments and law enforcement officials recently discussed cross-border security and management issues.  "The Canada-U.S. border is not the creation of the First Peoples of this land," said Assembly of First Nations National Chief Phil Fontaine. "Historically, our people moved freely throughout our territory and across what is now the border. We recognize that border security is a key concern for all North Americans, and this summit is an opportunity to find ways to address those concerns while ensuring that the rights of First Nations on both sides of the border are respected and protected.  "The Mohawk Council of Akwesasne and the St. Regis Mohawk Tribe hosted the gathering. Akwesasne straddles the Canadian-US border in Ontario, Quebec, and the state of New York.
  http://nativetimes.com/
  
   

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