5 minute read
Indigenous Peoples Law
RWU Law students Dr. Taino Palermo (left) and Raymond Two Hawks Watson at Providence’s Van Leesten Pedestrian Bridge.
The American Indian Law Students Association sponsored a Drum Circle to kick off the school year at RWU Law. The Eastern Medicine Singers performed traditional music from various Algonquin tribes.
THE WUTCHE WAME LIVING CULTURE COLLABORATIVE
RWU Law 3L Raymond Two Hawks Watson is a member, and current chief, of the Mashapaug Nahaganset Tribe, a federally non-recognized American Indian Tribe in Rhode Island. In 2020, Watson worked with RWU Law 3L Dr. Taino Palermo and RWU Professor Brian Hendrickson to found the Wutche Wame Living Culture Collaborative (from an Eastern Algonquin phrase meaning “for all”) with the goal of building Indigenous studies, programming, and awareness across the Roger Williams University campus.
The three-year initiative includes a plan to establish and fund, through RWU Law, the first full-service American Indian legal clinic in the Eastern United States. At RWU’s 2021 commencement celebrations, two local Indigenous leaders— Sagamore William Guy (Po Wauipi Neimpaug), principal chief of the Pokanoket Nation; and Lorén Spears, Executive Director of the Tomaquag Indigenous Museum in Exeter, R.I.—jointly delivered the day’s keynote address.
Also in the past year, Watson founded the law school’s American Indian Law Students Association (AILSA) together with Palermo, who is Kasiké (Chief) of the Baramaya Guaínía Clan, a federally non-recognized American Indian Tribe indigenous to Puerto Rico.
“Indian law intersects with so many established forms of law— such as family law, criminal law, and environmental law—yet it is often neglected as its own field of law,” Palermo explained. “We created AILSA to unify law students, faculty, and the community to come together and address intersectional legal issues facing indigenous people, as well as promote the advancement of According to 2L Orla Powers, current president of AILSA, “Students have really embraced Indigenous studies at the law school. We have a growing membership, a full executive Board with representation from first-, second-, and third-year students.”
“Indian law intersects with so many established forms of law, such as family law, criminal law, and environmental law, yet it is often neglected as its own field of law.” - 3L Dr. Taino Palermo
LAW 815: FEDERAL INDIAN LAW
This class, which had been offered in the past, was revamped and redesigned in 2020. The course, according to RWU Law Visiting Professor James Diamond, a nationally known expert on Indian law, explores the foundations and major principles of U.S. law that govern Native nations and their relationship to the United States. Guest speakers from tribal courts and governments participate in the course.
This new class was first offered in Spring 2021. Like RWU Law’s Federal Indian Law class, it drew a lot of student interest.
“Unlike Federal Indian Law, this course isn’t taught on a regular basis anywhere east of Michigan,” Diamond explained. The course’s focus is tribal law as developed by tribal nations in legislation and tribal court cases. It covers tribal constitutions and governmental structures as well. “One very interesting aspect of the class involves how tribal philosophies and culture are adapted to the common law,” Diamond added. “We also examine Indigenous dispute resolution, including something called peacemaking.”
Students participated in a simulated peacemaking session to resolve a family dispute with criminal law components. “I’m very encouraged by the overwhelming student interest in this innovative course,“ Diamond said.
What is cultural misappropriation, and why does it matter? A student-led conference at RWU Law—featuring a nationally prominent panel of legal experts and activists—drew more than 500 virtual attendees in March 2021. The conference examined copyright and trademark topics relating to the issue, including professional sports team names and logos (Harjo v. Pro Football and its relationship with Matal v. Tam); fashion (Urban Outfitters v. Navajo); photography and music on reservations; and traditional knowledge labeling. Presented by RWU Law’s Intellectual Property Law Association (IPLA), the event was moderated by then-1L Jeffrey Prystowsky and co-sponsored by the Copyright Society, RWU Law’s American Indian Law Students Association, the Tomaquag Museum, and others.
ALTERNATIVE SPRING BREAK
During 2021’s Alternative Spring Break, a number of RWU Law students worked in Indian law-related placements. These included work on tribal court ethics with the Tohono O’odham Nation of Sells, Ariz.; addressing repatriation of Native American children’s graves as part of the residential boarding school crisis, with the Association on American Indian Affairs of Rockville, Md.; and assisting with tribal domestic violence cases at the Southwest Center for Law and Policy of Tucson, Ariz. Students’ efforts extended far beyond Alternative Spring Break as well.
“Our students did pro bono work for Indian tribes and tribal organizations throughout the year, while others obtained Indian law summer jobs with law firms that practice Indian law,” Diamond noted.
The student editors of Roger Williams University Law Review spent the past year collaborating with the school’s American Indian Law Students Association to plan a groundbreaking legal symposium (held in Fall 2021). The Indigenous Peoples of New England were among the first in North America to experience European colonization and conquest, and this online conference discussed how they have been treated by the law and American legal institutions from the earliest days of settlement to today—and what tribes are doing today to exercise their inherent sovereignty and build thriving Native nations.
In one conference highlight, Palermo presented his research on developing a legal framework for federally non-recognized Tribal Nations reacquiring ancestral lands. Palermo joined an array of top experts from around the country, including Michigan State University Law School’s Professor Matthew L.M. Fletcher (Little Traverse Bay Band Oddawa) and RWU Law’s own Professor Diamond.
PROFESSOR JAMES DIAMOND
Dr. James Diamond is a Visiting Professor of Law at RWU Law. He teaches Federal Indian Law; Tribal Courts, Tribal Law, and Tribal Governments; and a number of other criminal law courses.
Diamond is also the Dean of Academic Affairs at the National Tribal Trial College. He is the former Director of the Indigenous Peoples Law and Policy Program’s Tribal Justice Clinic, and a former law professor at the University of Arizona James E. Rogers College of Law. He has also served as a Special Prosecutor in the Pascua Yaqui Tribal Court in Arizona.
Diamond is certified by the National Board of Trial Advocacy as a criminal trial specialist. He has extensive criminal trial experience, with more than a thousand criminal cases under his belt.
