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WSU releases documentary on government, Shoshone Bannock treaty

A WSU documentary, filmed over the course of eight years, showed research on an unratified treaty between the U.S. and the mixed-band of Shoshone, Bannock, and Sheep-Eater people.

Alicia Woodard, a part-time history graduate student, said the documentary brings to light how the federal government treated the unratified treaty and the 32,000 square mile land cession by Chief Tendoy of the mixed band as law.

The Indian Claims Commission consulted with the Shoshone Bannock tribe in 1970 to find what territories were taken.

Orlan Svingen.
Svingen

Orlan Svingen, WSU history professor, said the commission failed to uncover the cession document in 1970, and so the mixed-band tribe was not compensated for all their land.

“It’s my hope and theirs that the federal government will provide a remedy that is fair to history, and fair to the mixed band,” he said.

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Daily Evergreen

 

Student to intern at congressional, senatorial level

Emma R. Johnson.
Emma Johnson

Emma R. Johnson is the first WSU student to become a Udall Native American Congressional intern and has also been selected to become an intern for Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto (D-NV).

Johnson, a senior majoring in cultural anthropology, is also a member of the Cowlitz Indian tribe, said she began the Udall application process in October 2018 and submitted it in January 2019.

Johnson said the Udall Foundation awards scholarships according to three different categories: environmental, tribal policy and Native American healthcare.

As a scholarship winner, Johnson was required to attend a four-day conference with other Udall scholars. During the conference, Johnson learned about congressional internships.

After being chosen as one of the finalists, the Udall Foundation and Sen. Cortez Masto’s staff interviewed Johnson, she said.

She said Sen. Cortez Masto is on the U.S. Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources, as well as the U.S. Senate Committee on Indian Affairs, which are two of Johnson’s interests.

Johnson said she will be working in Sen. Cortez Masto’s office, and her responsibilities as an intern will include giving tours of the capital and speaking with constituents.

“I’ll be given portfolios on Indian Affairs and Energy and Natural Resources, so I can work with what I’m interested in,” she said. “I will also get the bigger picture of everything that goes on in her office.”

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WSU Insider
Daily Evergreen

 

Student plans app to reduce DUI rates

A WSU student created a concept for an app in response to an increase in rates of drunk driving in Washington.

Savannah Obernberger.
Obernberger

Savanna Obernberger, junior criminal justice major, said she worked with the Washington Traffic Safety Commission and four classmates in a crime prevention strategies course.

She said they evaluated policies regarding DUIs and developed recommendations for police departments, insurance companies and bartenders. The course ended in fall 2018, but she said she wanted to continue finding solutions to reduce DUI rates.

The app would allow people to keep track of when they are drinking at bars, how much their blood alcohol content is, and how they decide to get home, she said.

“I think our criminal justice system can improve in so many ways,” Obernberger said. “If there is any way we can approach that as students or young people, we definitely should.”

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Daily Evergreen

A Battle is Being Waged to Save Bears Ears, Chaco Canyon National Parks

During his tenure, Barack Obama gave roughly 553 million acres of land national protection (more than even famed conservationist Theodore Roosevelt) by establishing or adding to 29 national monuments, signaling an unprecedented commitment to protecting culturally and historically significant American land.

However, since his election, conservationists have worried Donald Trump and his administration were going to greatly reduce the amount of sacred, tribal land protected under federal law.

William Lipe.
Lipe

“If the Trump administration’s effort to dramatically reduce the size of the Bears Ears National Monument survives challenges in federal courts, it would represent a very large change in application of the 1906 Antiquities Act – because it would be an unprecedented reduction by executive action of a monument proclaimed by a previous president. This might also encourage future executive assaults on other laws that have been used to protect cultural and environmental resources on the federal public lands,” said Dr. William D. Lipe, archaeologist and Professor Emeritus at Washington State University.

One of the biggest blows the administration has dealt to the indigenous nations of the southwestern United States is the 2017 proclamation that reduced the size of Bears Ears National Monument to a mere 15 percent of its former size.

Trump’s administration used the Antiquities Act to justify his proclamation, a move that many have contended is illegal under federal law. The Antiquities Act was signed into law by Theodore Roosevelt in 1906 and gave the federal government the power to create national monuments from public lands.

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CitizenTruth

The Wall: Cracks Deepening in US Admin. Over Trump’s Tough Border Policy

Cornell Clayton.
Clayton

Kirstjen Michele Nielsen, an American attorney and national security expert, abruptly resigned on 7 April as the U.S. Homeland Security secretary. According to Cornell Clayton, a professor at the Washington State University, “this is further evidence of the disarray within the administration over the border crisis and Trump’s frustration with what he saw as her inability to clamp down on illegal crossings at the U.S.-Mexico border.”

According to the academic, the southern border controversy continues to escalate within the Trump administration. While “hard-liners,” like Stephen Miller, want to double down on tough rhetoric and “tough policies,” there are those who “want to find some bipartisan solution to the border crisis and to immigration policies more generally,” Clayton said. He added that Trump’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner, was “trying to negotiate a broader immigration deal with Democrats behind the scenes”

“The confusion became crystal clear this week,” the professor opined. “Trump threatened to close the border with Mexico but was then forced to back away from that position just six days later by Congressional Republicans and others in the administration who know it would be economically disastrous.”

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