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San Diego State University
University of San Diego
California Sate University
San Marcos
University of California
San Diego
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AIR Sr. Spring 2010
New: AIR News 2-26-10
Starting another great year at the AIR Program. Next meeting Monday March 15th, at the San Diego State University
Reminder: Students should complete their Applications and evaluation waivers
Application and Evaulation Waiver
AIR Program Banquet:
AIR Program: "We would like to thank all the attendees at the AIR Program Fundraiser Banquet and all those who have supported our program through their generous donations. Truly, we all had a wonderful time. Thank you."
Award Recipient for AIR Program's "Mentor Leadership Award" for 2009 is Katherine I. Gordon (Maryland, University of San Diego) and Roberta Garcia (Navajo-University of San Diego).
Award Recipient for AIR Program's "Community Leadership Award" for 2009 is Michelle Jacob, Ph.D. (Yakama)
University of San Diego.
Award Recipients are for AIR Program's "Students of the Year" for 2009. Recipients are Monique Vasquez (Mojave), Chandler Hood (Navajo), and Rose Vasquez (Kumeyaay-Santa Ysabel)
News for Students: (Fri. Morning)
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Legal: |
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Hiring Preferences on Tribal Lands Are Legal, Brown Tells Caltrans
By KENNETH OFGANG, Staff Writer
The California Department of Transportation is not prohibited from granting preferences to members of Indian tribes when hiring for, or contracting out, road construction and maintenance work on roads located on American Indian land, Attorney General Jerry Brown said in an opinion made public yesterday.
In an opinion requested by Caltrans and prepared by Deputy Attorney General Daniel G. Stone, Brown said the preferences are authorized by federal law and do not violate Proposition 209’s ban on racial preferences in public contracting or employment or the Fourteenth Amendment Equal Protection Clause.
Such road work, Brown explained, is typically subject to tribal employment rights ordinances, or TEROs, that ensure opportunities for Native Americans to participate in the work, as well as require payment of a form of payroll tax that is used to fund economic development.
The attorney general cited Sec. 703(i) of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which provides that the prohibition of race discrimination in employment shall not “apply to any business or enterprise on or near an Indian reservation with respect to any publicly announced employment practice of such business or enterprise under which a preferential treatment is given to any individual living on or near a reservation.”
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Secret Snowbowl talks break open
CYNDY COLE Sun Staff Reporter
Tuesday, March 9, 2010 5:20 am
A federal agency is pressing the city of Flagstaff to offer potable water for snowmaking at Arizona Snowbowl that does not come directly from reclaimed wastewater. In addition, Snowbowl could get government aid to cover the $11 million in higher costs for the water over 20 winters.
Arizona's two U.S. senators are blasting the plan as a waste of taxpayer money and a violation of court decisions in favor of making snow at Snowbowl with treated effluent. The proposal comes in response to tribal concerns that making snow with reclaimed wastewater desecrates the San Francisco Peaks, which they hold sacred. Instead of making snow entirely with processed wastewater taken from the Rio de Flag Water Reclamation plant, Snowbowl would be tapping so-called "stored water."
That's water located underground and downstream of the Rio de Flag plant, mixed with natural surface and groundwater from rain and snow.
This "stored water" is already tapped by four 1,500-foot-deep city wells in the vicinity of Foxglenn. But instead of going to the city's water treatment plant for final processing, up to 1.5 million gallons a day would be diverted to Snowbowl for three months each winter.
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Suicides complicate Native American artifact looting case
FBI informant Ted Gardiner's death last week is the third. Critics say the federal government has been overzealous in its prosecutions and that his videotaped testimony should not be allowed.
By Nicholas Riccardi
March 9, 2010 | 2:42 p.m.
Reporting from Denver - For 90 tense minutes last month, Sheriff Mike Lacy in Utah tried to prevent yet another person connected to the theft of Native American artifacts from committing suicide.
Two defendants had already taken their own lives after federal authorities charged 24 people in June with looting Native American sites in the West.
Now a despondent relative of a third defendant had called Lacy. The sheriff of San Juan County kept the caller on the phone until deputies could arrive and make sure everything was OK.
But there was still another suicide to come.
Last week, Ted Gardiner, a 52-year-old antiquities dealer who worked as an FBI informant on the case, shot himself in a Salt Lake City suburb. Relatives said the two previous suicides had affected him greatly.
Gardiner's death has left the case, once touted as the largest prosecution of looters of Native American artifacts, in limbo. A federal judge in Denver has pushed back the first trial, slated to start this month, to allow federal prosecutors to see whether they can use videotaped testimony from their now-deceased star witness.
Defense attorneys are expected to argue that evidence recorded by Gardiner should be disallowed because he can no longer be cross-examined. Nonetheless, at a hearing Monday in Salt Lake City, federal prosecutors insisted the case could go forward.
To critics, Gardiner's suicide -- which followed those of a beloved physician in southeastern Utah and an antiquities dealer in Santa Fe, N.M., last year -- is yet another indication that the full weight of the U.S. government was not needed to deal with what many residents of the Four Corners area believe is just a local pastime known as pot-hunting.
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Alaska presses Supreme Court in tribal adoption case
Thursday, March 11, 2010
The state of Alaska is asking the U.S. Supreme Court to review a tribal adoption case but some lawmakers are questioning the move.
The state lost the case in four different courts before five different judges. But Attorney General Dan Sullivan said the state needs to determine whether its court system or the tribal court system has precedence in Indian Child Welfare Act cases.
State lawmakers, however, said the state should concede. They said Sullivan's fight could undermine the tribal-state relationship.
"The facts in Kaltag are this," said Sen. Bill Wielechowski (D), The Anchorage Daily News reported. "You had a Mom who was convicted of murder and was a drinker. You had a Dad who wanted nothing to do with the child. You had the Kaltag tribe that took custody of the child, adopted her to residents who lived in Huslia. All participants consented to the tribal court doing this, all were Native, no one raised any concerns about the due process provided by the tribal court. The child is 10 years old, happy and healthy with the family, and the state comes in and wants to stop this."
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Health: |
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Combating Childhood Obesity in Indian Country
Posted March 09, 2010
By Kimberly Teehee, Senior Policy Advisor for Native American Affairs, White House Domestic Policy Council
In his address on the State of the Union, President Obama announced that First Lady Michelle Obama would be taking the lead in the Administration’s efforts “to tackle the epidemic of childhood obesity.” Two weeks later, on February 9, the First Lady unveiled a nationwide campaign – Let’s Move! – to fight the epidemic and improve the health of children. An integral part of the First Lady’s campaign will be to work with American Indian and Alaska Native (AI/AN) communities, where childhood obesity rates are particularly high.
While nearly one third of children in the United States are overweight or obese – a rate that has tripled in adolescents and more than doubled in younger children since 1980 – the overweight/obesity rate is even higher among AI/AN children, approaching 50%. This figure is particularly alarming given studies showing that obese children have a very high risk of developing type 2 diabetes and other associated health problems such as hypertension and heart disease later in life. Although once non-existent in youth, type 2 diabetes is increasingly being diagnosed in children, and more than 75% of the young people that have it are obese. These recent findings make the fight against childhood obesity all the more urgent because individuals that acquire type 2 diabetes as children are more likely to develop serious diabetes-related complications as adults during the years that ordinarily would be the most productive of their lives.
In support of the First Lady’s campaign against childhood obesity, on February 9, President Obama signed a Presidential Memorandum establishing an inter-agency task force “to solve the problem of childhood obesity within a generation through a comprehensive approach that builds on effective strategies, engages families and communities, and mobilizes both public and private sector resources.” The Task Force will develop a national action plan that maximizes federal resources and sets concrete benchmarks toward the First Lady’s national goal. In doing so, the Task Force will reach out to tribal authorities to ensure that childhood obesity solutions will be effective in AI/AN communities. This outreach is consistent with the Administration’s commitment to tribal consultation and will further strengthen relationships developed at the recent White House Tribal Nations Conference and at agency listening sessions.
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