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Maoist Internationalist Movement

Unenrolled First Nations people legally speaking and nationality academically speaking

By a contributor March 25, 2005

The Phil DiStefano-led investigation committee has referred the matter of Ward Churchill's indigenous identity to the University of Colorado at Boulder Standing Committee on Research Misconduct, paving the way to fire Churchill ostensibly not for his speech in his "Some People Push Back" essay, but for allegedly misrepresenting himself as an indigenous persyn.

The committee's report says: "There is evidence that Professor Churchill's assertion of his Indian status is material to his scholarship, yet there is serious doubt about his Indian identity. The evidence is sufficient to warrant referral of this question to the Committee on Research Misconduct for inquiry and, if appropriate, investigation to determine whether Professor Churchill relies on his Indian identity in his scholarship and, if so, whether he has fabricated that identity. The Committee should inquire as to whether Professor Churchill can assert a reasonable basis for clarifying such identity."(1)

In actual fact, the University of Colorado knows very well the issues with Ward Churchill's identity and it has known them since 1978. The persyn who initially hired him said so. The above statement from the committee report is thus a libel. To say otherwise would be to pretend that University of Colorado does not know what its own officers have said and done-- a sorry legal and ethical basis especially after spending a month reviewing the question and having so many decades of Ward Churchill controversy. We're not buying that the University of Colorado is so inept that it does not know what it is doing and did not read Churchill's 1980 resume. Churchill has been forthright and principled every step of the way. It is the University of Colorado, the regents and the lynch mob that need to be exposed for the slime-mongerers they are.

If Churchill is eventually fired, and even if he is not, MIM believes he will have reasons to sue DiStefano and others for violating his civil rights regardless of what the standing committee finds. However, if the regents do not fire Churchill for reasons relating to his indigenous identity, it will be a victory for the national question because it would mean that Uncle $am does not get to restrict in an overly narrow way who can call him/herself indigenous. The specifics from the viewpoint of MIM of what it means to be a nation aside, nations are social formations, not biological or legal entities.

The tremendous irony of this whole struggle is that there is no greater authority on the question of race-mixing and the First Nations than Ward Churchill. There is also no better generalization about the history involved than the one provided by Ward Churchill, at Znet for example.

MIM is Marxist, not post-modernist, and we've denounced post-modernism many times on these web pages, but post-modernists dominating academia including on ethnicity questions are all genius-material compared with the lynch mob pursuing Ward Churchill right now. The Bill O'Reillys, Ann Coulters and Yeagleys should stop foaming at the mouth long enough to ask themselves some hard questions. Their standards imply they would have fired Cherokee Chief John Ross for not being full-blooded enough at 1/8 blood. Here is Ward Churchill not even claiming to be a chief and the crypto-Nazis jump up and down. The inconsistency in that is so pathetic as to be laughable. The lynch mob is just not in the same league as Ward Churchill. Ward Churchill argues from within indigenous history. His critics are simple racists trying to impose a pseudo-science of racial genetics that did not come from indigenous people.

Another great irony is that the u.$. government is not historically on DiStefano's side legally. Ward Churchill has never claimed to be fully enrolled in any federally or State-recognized tribe, thanks to his own correct view of bloodline theory. What Churchill has claimed is to be an associate member of the United Keetoowah Band of Cherokee, and he has also claimed to have "unenrolled" Cherokee and Creek heritage.

Many commentators and even reporters simply assume that associate membership does not mean enrollment. But the government of the united $nakes does not make a distinction between "associate member" and "fully enrolled member" in the context of federally recognized tribes. There is either enrollment or non-enrollment. The u.$. government allows tribes to determine their own official membership. Not only do u.$. government documents regularly use "enrollment" and "membership" interchangeably, potentially blurring in an informal way the distinction between "associate membership" and "enrollment," "there are no federal standards for tribal enrollment cards."(2) Even if Churchill's UKC associate membership marked itself as not being a tribal enrollment card, which would be an official card, associate membership could be construed an enrollment. Indeed, former UKC enrollment committee member Ernestine Berry recently claims she told former Chief John Ross that Churchill could "damage the integrity of the roll " (my emphasis).(3)(4) "She said Churchill is no longer listed on any tribal rolls, even though his associate membership has never been revoked. 'If the council wanted to, they could take him off the roll , and I wish they would,' said Berry" (my emphasis).(4) That certainly implies that Ward Churchill is enrolled and raises questions why anyone would fool with that status.

Whether or not Churchill was ever enrolled in the UKC in every sense, the u.$. government has repeatedly acknowledged the legitimacy of unenrolled indigenous people. For instance, a 2004 u.$. Department of the Interior Office of Federal Acknowledgment final determination (FD) recognizes "social contacts . . . between enrolled and unenrolled portions of the Schaghticoke community."(5) "This FD concludes that the STN [Schaghticoke Tribal Nation], including the presently unenrolled portion of the community, meets the requirements of [25 CFR] 83.7(b)."(5) 83.7(b) is a criterion for Federal acknowledgment. "A predominant portion of the petitioning group comprises a distinct community and has existed as a community from historical times until the present."(6)

MIM obviously does not uphold the imperialist u.$. government's dictating who constitutes First Nations, but MIM would not mind pointing out that Uncle $am is in the above particular sentence more correct than the various incompetent media morons who think being indigenous within the united $tates is just a matter of having official enrollment cards or a blood quantum.

Of course, Uncle $am recognizes that unenrolled First Nations people are still legitimate First Nations people, but does this for its own reasons. For example, Washington State includes in the definition of "Indian child" a minor who is "[a]n unenrolled Indian: a person considered to be an Indian by a federally recognized or non-federally recognized Indian/Alaska native community organization." The Washington State Juvenile Rehabilitation Administration wants to "coordinat[e] with tribes when working with tribal members who may be in JRA facilities."(7)

Michigan acknowledges the existence of unenrolled indigenous people, and they are liable to pay income taxes. "An Indian, whether or not an enrolled member of a tribe or band, who receives income from sources outside of his or her reservation is subject to Michigan income tax on the income, unless the income is otherwise excluded or exempted from tax by State or Federal laws."(8)

Additionally, "unenrolled Indians are eligible for a wide range of federal benefits directed to persons recognized by the Secretary of Interior as Indians without statutory reference to enrollment . For example, The Native American Programs Act of 1974, creating the Administration for Native Americans, operates under regulations with a very broad definition of Indian: 'any individual who claims to be an Indian and who is regarded as such by the Indian community in which he or she lives or by the Indian community of which he or she claims to be a part.' "(9)

And so on. The point is that even the united $nakes recognizes that unenrolled First Nations people are still First Nations people. We can even leave aside the Marxist definition of nation involving land, economy, language and psychology, and Churchill will still be indigenous for all legal purposes (including lawsuits) even if he not fully enrolled in any Uncle $am-recognized "tribe."


Notes:

1. "Report on Conclusion of Preliminary Review in the Matter of Professor Ward Churchill," March 24, 2005, www.rockymountainnews.com/drmn/education/article/0,1299,DRMN_957_3648047,00.html

2. "House Bill Report : HB 1496," p. 2, http://www.leg.wa.gov/pub/billinfo/2005-06/Pdf/Bill%20Reports/House/1496.HBR.pdf

3. Howard Pankratz, "CU prof affirms Indian heritage," February 3, 2005, http://denverpost.com/Stories/0,1413,36%257E23827%257E2689334,00.html

4. Eddie Glenn, "Controversial professor claims ties to UKB," February 4, 2005, ww.tahlequahdailypress.com/articles/2005/02/04/news/top_stories/aaaaaaaprof.txt (Google cache: cles%2F2005%2F02%2F04%2Fnews%2Ftop_stories%2Faaaaaaaprof.txt&btnG=Google+Search)

5. "Final Determination To Acknowledge the Schaghticoke Tribal Nation," Federal Register 69, no. 24 (2004): 5570-5574, p. 5572, .akamaitech.net/7/257/2422/14mar20010800/edocket.access.gpo.gov/2004/04-2532.htm

6. 25CFR83.7, "Mandatory criteria for Federal acknowledgment," April 1, 2001, p. 262, et/7/257/2422/04nov20031500/edocket.access.gpo.gov/cfr_2001/aprqtr/25cfr83.7.htm

7. "Inquiry to Indian tribe, band, or nation, and notice of incarceration of a youth," http://www1.dshs.wa.gov/pdf/ms/forms/09_539a.pdf

Also see: "WAC 388-70-450 Adoptive planning for Indian children by department staff," http://www.leg.wa.gov/WAC/index.cfm?section=388-70-450&fuseaction=section

"Unenrolled Indian: A person considered to be an Indian by a federally or nonfederally recognized tribe or urban Indian/Alaskan native community organization."

8. "Revenue Administrative Bulletin 1988-47 : Income Tax - Taxability of Income Derived on an Indian Reservation," September 26, 1988, http://www.michigan.gov/treasury/1,1607,7-121-1748_1904_2027-7363--,00.html

9. United States of America v. Violet Bruce, United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, 2005, opinion by Judge Bybee, 9/newopinions.nsf/D41FC04292422D7288256F87008015E6/$file/0330171.pdf?openelement

10. Pauline Turner Strong and Barrik Van Winkle, " 'Indian Blood': Reflections on the Reckoning and Refiguring of Native North American Identity," Cultural Anthropology 1, no. 4 (1996): 547-576.

"Blue has described the Lumbees' refusal to designate tribal identity in terms of blood; and Clifford and Campisi have shown Mashpee identity to be grounded more in shared history, social ties, and attachment to place than in objectified ancestry. But among federally recognized tribes in the United States, blood quantum (often 25 percent) is the most common criterion of membership. Used in specific cases since the Sauk and Fox treaty of 1830, blood quantum was given more generalized application in the administration of Indian boarding schools and land allotments and in census reports." (p. 555).

"In the administration of the General Allotment (or Dawes Severalty Act) of 1887 and subsequent legislation, determinations of the 'competency' of individuals to possess and alienate private property often involved blood quanta" (p. 567). The authors cite Lawrence C. Kelly's 1983 The Assault on Assimilation: John Collier and the Origins of Indian Reform (Albuquerque, NM: University of New Mexico Press).

The side issue here is that the rumor, which DiStefano spreads, about Churchill misrepresenting the General Allotment Act is clearly within the realm of interpretation in the normal academic process. It is just dishonesty or incompetence for a university chancellor to suggest otherwise.