Wednesday, December 19, 2007

IGRA 20th Anniversary Conference -- Oct. 16-17, 2008

The Indian Legal Program at the Sandra Day O’Connor College of Law at Arizona State University, American Indian Policy Institute at ASU, American Indian Law Center, Inc., Native Nations Law and Policy Center at University of California, Los Angeles, National Congress of American Indians, National Indian Gaming Association, Arizona Indian Gaming Association, and the New Mexico Indian Gaming Association are pleased to announce a conference to commemorate and celebrate the twentieth anniversary of the enactment of the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act. The Conference entitled Indian Country's Winning Hand: 20 Years of IGRA will be held on October 16-17, 2008 at the Ft McDowell Yavapai Nation's Radisson Fort McDowell Resort & Casino in Scottsdale/Fountain Hills, Arizona.

CONFERENCE AGENDA


Thursday, October 16, 2008


7:00 – 8:00 am Registration

8:00 – 8:45 am Welcome and Introduction

8:45 – 10:20 am A History of the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act

10:20 – 10:45 am Break

10:45 – 12:15 pm Federal Implementation of IGRA: The National Indian Gaming Commission, the Bureau of Indian Affairs and the Department of Justice

12:15 – 2:00 pm Keynote Luncheon

2:00 – 3:30 pm Class III Gaming Compacts and the Impact of Indian Gaming on Tribal-State Relations

3:30 – 3:50 pm Break

3:50 – 5:30 pm Class III Gaming Compacts and the Impact of Indian Gaming on Tribal-State Relations


6:30 – 8:30 pm Pathbreaker’s Banquet (Courtyard Plaza)


Friday, October 17, 2008


7:30 – 8:30 am Check-In

8:30 – 10:00 am The Economic Impacts of Indian Gaming

10:00 – 10:20 am Break

10:20 – 12:15 pm Indian Gaming’s Impact on the Tribes

12:15 – 2:00 pm Keynote Luncheon

2:00 – 3:15 pm Indian Gaming and the Federal Tribal Relationship

3:15 – 3:30 pm Break

3:30 – 5:30 pm Where Does Indian Gaming Go From Here?


Confirmed Speakers: (listed alphabetically)

  • Allison Binney (tentative)

  • Dr. Eddie Brown

  • Robert N. Clinton

  • Philip S. Deloria

  • Howard Dickstein, Esq.

  • Franklin Ducheneaux

  • Eric D. Eberhard

  • Larry Echohawk

  • Shawn Ellis

  • Diane G. Enos

  • Franklin Ettawageshik

  • Glenn M. Feldman

  • Matthew L.M. Fletcher

  • Thomas F. Gede

  • Carole E. Goldberg

  • Kevin Gover

  • Stephen M. Hart

  • Jacqueline Johnson

  • Joseph P. Kalt

  • Dan Kolkey

  • Thomas L. LeClaire

  • Steven Andrew Light

  • Arlinda Locklear

  • Michael Lombardi

  • Deron Marquez

  • Heidi McNeil Staudenmaier

  • Kathryn R.L. Rand

  • G. William Rice

  • Fawn Sharp

  • Jim Shore (tentative)

  • Alexander Tallchief Skibine

  • George Skibine

  • Kate Spilde Contreras. Ph. D.

  • Jonathan Taylor

  • Rebecca Tsosie

  • Mark Van Norman

  • Kevin Washburn

  • Richard West

  • Dr. Peterson Zah


Others who have been or are being invited,

not yet confirmed.


Carl J. Artman

Raphael Bear

Melanie Benjamin

Joe A. Garcia

Philip N. Hogen

Mark Macarro

Richard M. Milanovich

Raymond G. Sanchez

Ernest L. Stevens, Jr.

Kimberly Teehee


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Monday, December 17, 2007

Study of Prejudice Against American Indians

In October 2007, The Tulsa World published a story about a study regarding racism toward Native Americans. According to the researchers, who were from the University of Tulsa, “The findings support the idea that although overtly racist ideas toward African-Americans appear to be less prevalent in contemporary America, overt racism towards Native Americans is present."

One thing I found absolutely shocking about the study was its methodology. According to the published reports, the results "were from a written survey of 55 white, middle-class college students in their 20s at TU who had been in college for more than a year."

Excuse me? Fifty-five college students? I will admit that my statistics class is a distant memory, but I seem to recall rules and formulas for calculating sample size. Indeed, five minutes of searching on google not only revealed the basic rules, but turned up a "sample size" calculator. You input the confidence interval (the old standard "plus or minus 4 percentage points") and the confidence level (95% is standard), and it tells you what your sample size needs to be. I selected a confidence interval of 5 and a confidence level of 95%, and the calculator told me I needed a sample size of 384.

If I reduced the confidence interval to 13, I could make do with a sample size of 57. Can you imagine the political pollster reporting that candidate X has a 4 point lead in the polls, with a margin of error of plus or minus 13? What does that really tell us?

And why survey only students at the University of Tulsa? To get a truly representative sample, shouldn't students from other universities, at the very least the University of Oklahoma and Oklahoma State University have been included?

Fifty-five college students sounds like a class project, not a major research study. Fifty-five college students sounds like the initial springboard giving rise to a bigger, more comprehensive study, rather than the actual end of the line.

Given the problems with sample size, I would be curious to know the rest of the survey's methodology. How was the written survey administered? What were the study conditions? What questions, and how many, were asked? How were the answers caculated and analyzed?

The study itself is an intriguing one, and I would be absolutely interested in seeing the results of a properly conducted survey, or in seeing an explanation of why this survey was properly conducted. Perhaps I am wrong, but I am reluctant to jump to conclusions and accept the results as accurate, when for all we know, fifty-five hungry (and maybe hung over) college students were given a "check the box" quiz about product labels while waiting in line for breakfast Sunday morning - which is more offensive, the Land o'Lakes label or the Aunt Jemima label?

Monday, December 03, 2007

Upcoming Tribal Law / Tribal Courts Conference

American University Washington College of Law (WCL) is hosting a conference, What Do We Know About Tribal Courts? An Examination on the 30th Anniversary of Oliphant, examining tribal law and tribal courts on March 6, 2008. While Federal Indian Law, the law governing federal-tribal relations, has made its way onto an increasing number of state bar exams and Indian law scholarship periodically even is published in leading law reviews, tribal law in some respects remains Indian law’s younger sibling. Ten years ago, while a professor at WCL, Nell Jessup Newton, now Dean of Hastings, observed that “the work of tribal courts is little known outside the circle of attorneys practicing before tribal courts on a regular basis and scholars of
Indian law.” Nell Newton, Tribal Court Praxis: One Year in the Life of Twenty Indian Tribal Courts, 22 AM. INDIAN L. REV. 285 (1998). A scholarly focus on tribal courts is also a logical outgrowth of the U.S. Supreme Court’s problematic understanding of tribal courts 30 years ago in Oliphant v. Suquamish Indian Tribe, 435 U.S. 191 (1978). Borrowing from the conclusion of Dean Newton’s exploration of tribal courts, the hope is that this conference will “serve to allow for a critical dialogue” on tribal law.
-- If you are interested in presenting at this conference, please contact Ezra Rosser by Dec. 20, 2008 at 202-274-4064 or erosser@wcl.american.edu.

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