All The World's A Stage

Native American News

Subtle Pain

The American Psychological Association called Wednesday for "the immediate retirement of all American Indian mascots, symbols, images and personalities by schools, colleges, universities, athletic teams and organizations."

The psychological association's Council of Representatives approved the call based on what it described as a growing body of social science literature that shows the harmful effects of racial stereotyping and inaccurate racial portrayals, according to a statement. The literature shows "particularly harmful effects of American Indian sports mascots on the social identity development and self-esteem of American Indian young people," the association said.

Unsubtle Theft

The conflict over royalties dates to the Dawes Act of 1887, which initiated the allotment of land to individual Indians as their reservations were being broken up for sale. While the Indians owned the allotments and sometimes lived on them, the government retained title and generated income for the Indians from use of the land.

The proceeds were put into a trust to be paid out to Indian holders of individual trust accounts, whose number grew as the allotments were passed down to family members. The Interior Department was charged with managing the fund, which exceeds $150 million dollars, Mr. DuBray said.

In 1994, Congress passed the American Indian Trust Reform Management Act, which required the department to account for all the money in the fund.

For the fourth time since 2001, a federal judge has sought to force the Interior Department to disconnect from the Internet its computers that have access to data related to trust accounts it administers for American Indians.

In an opinion of more than 200 pages, the judge, Royce C. Lamberth of Federal District Court here, said computer security at the department was "disorganized and broken," making it vulnerable to computer hackers.

The ruling, issued on Thursday, exempted those computers necessary "to protect against fires or other such threats to life, property or national security."

But Interior Department officials said that the order could affect as many as 6,000 government computers containing Indian trust data, and others still with indirect access to the information. Dan DuBray, a department spokesman, said the agency received a temporary stay of the order from an federal appeals court on Friday, as it seeks to have the decision reversed. Government lawyers had argued that the stay was "necessary to prevent grave injury to the public interest" and the operations of government.

Interior officials say previous shutdowns of computer systems have made it difficult for people to gain access to online information about national parks and monuments and for employees to communicate effectively. Indeed, Judge Lamberth issued a similar but less extensive order in March 2004 that was overturned on appeal.

In August, the Justice Department asked that a different judge be assigned to the long-running case, contending that Judge Lamberth had been an obstacle in concluding the matter. That request is pending before a federal appeals court.

The dispute stems from a lawsuit filed in 1996 by Elouise Cobell, a banker and Blackfoot Indian from Montana, on behalf of nearly a half-million Indians who contend that during more than a century the government has squandered about $137 billion in grazing, energy and mineral royalties from Indian lands.

Judge Lamberth has consistently sided with the Indians, holding the interior secretary, Gale A. Norton, and her predecessor in the Clinton administration, Bruce Babbitt, in contempt for failing to account for the money.

Posted by Liz at October 27, 2005 9:18 PM