Posted: November 14, 2005
by: Jim Adams / Indian Country Today

TUCSON, Ariz. - Vine DeLoria Jr., the intellectual star of the American Indian renaissance, passed on Nov. 13, after struggling for several weeks with declining health. His immeasurable influence became immediately apparent in an outpouring of tributes from all corners of Indian country.

BY JIM PAUL
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

CHAMPAIGN — The University of Illinois’ use of the "Fighting Illini" nickname is acceptable, but its tradition of a buckskin-clad student dancing at home sporting events is not, the NCAA declared Friday as it upheld the school’s exclusion from hosting postseason tournaments.

By Sharon Stello/Enterprise staff writer

Published Sep 12, 2005 - 00:44:35 CDT.

With rakes, brooms and a renewed sense of hope, D-Q University students and staff worked alongside community volunteers to spruce up the campus Friday in time to reopen for the fall semester, ending a period of closure.

The state's only tribal college, west of Davis, lost its accreditation in January and has been closed since the beginning of spring semester. A power struggle for control of the college ended up in court to determine the official board of trustees.

By Jennifer Brown and Amy Herdy
Denver Post Staff Writers

Colorado's inquiry into professor Ward Churchill has moved into a full-blown investigation, but a decision on whether he'll keep his job could take at least five more months.

In a news release Friday, CU spokeswoman Pauline Hale said the Standing Committee on Research Misconduct had notified interim provost Susan Avery that seven allegations warrant further investigation.

By Saree Makdisi
The Los Angeles Times
Wednesday 04 May 2005

In the months ahead, the state Senate Committee on Education will consider a bill that pretends to strike a blow for intellectual honesty, truth and freedom, but in reality poses a profound threat to academic freedom in the United States.

Peddled under the benign name "An Academic Bill of Rights," SB 5 is in fact part of a wide assault on universities, professors and teaching across the country. Similar bills are pending in more than a dozen state legislatures and at the federal level, all calling for government intrusion into pedagogical matters, such as text assignments and course syllabuses, that neither legislators nor bureaucrats are competent to address.

A system off track? Critics say it shouldn't be so hard to fire tenured professors.

By Kyle Henley | Contributor to The Christian Science Monitor
DENVER, COLO. – Divisive college professors are nothing new in academia. Every so often, though, they catch the public's attention and stir up controversy.

The latest case in point: University of Colorado Prof. Ward Churchill, whose controversial essay likening 9/11 victims to Nazis has reignited the long-simmering debate over tenure and academic freedom in higher education.

By GAIL SCHONTZLER, Chronicle Staff Writer

As a little boy growing up on the Crow Indian reservation, Russell Stands Over Bull dreamed of making something of himself.

He was only 5 years old when he saw some men in suits at a Billings bank and thought, "I want to be like them."

But he got married young and found himself painting HUD houses on the reservation for a couple of years.

"It almost railroaded me," Stands Over Bull, 41, told about 50 students at the opening of the Native Nexus Conference at Montana State University.

There's got to be more to life than painting houses, he thought. "All of a sudden, there was some little spark of hope that began to rise."

April 13, 2005

By John Spano, Times Staff Writer

Almost a decade after American Indian mascots were banned from Los Angeles public schools, lawmakers are again considering a statewide prohibition on "Redskins" this week.

Proponents contend that the legislation would banish the mascot from five California schools that use it.

Unmelting pot? Diversity a problem at UW-Madison
0:23 AM 4/11/04
Karen Rivedal Wisconsin State Journal

Spurred by a bigot's beer bottle, UW-Madison's already tiny contingent of Native American students shrank by one last month.

In mid-March, 18-year-old freshman Kyle Aragon quit school and returned home to New Mexico, shaken by a series of racially motivated incidents including an attack in February outside a bar on University Avenue that left him with stitches above one eye, according to his friends and university officials.

04/08/2005 - INDIAN COUNTRY

by: Anthony Pico

The task of breaking American Indian stereotypes, dispelling myths and putting tribal issues into context falls on the media, the public's primary source of information. If the press doesn't understand us, the public will never get past the stereotypical ignorance that has plagued Indians from the day the first European arrived.

Tribal leaders have an obligation to do what they can to educate both the public and the media. No less than the future of American democracy is at stake, along with a rare chance to alter generations of failed relations between Indians and non-Indians.