Current Trends in Native American Law & Organizing

Panelists joining Editor-in-Chief Chaumtoli Huq included activist Cedric Woods of North Carolina’s Lumbee tribe, Wahleah Johns of the Navajo (Dine) tribe of Forest Lake and Professor Nicole Friederichs, who teaches and manages Suffolk University Law School’s Indigenous Peoples Rights Clinic in Boston.

Click below to see the video from the discussion. Be sure to leave your comments or reactions below, on the video’s You Tube page or tweet them directly to #lawatmargins.

ABOUT OUR PANELISTS

Cedric Woods, a citizen of the Lumbee tribe of North Carolina, combines over a decade of tribal government experience with research and is the founding director of the Institute for New England Native American Studies at the University of Massachusetts-Boston. The purpose of the institute is to connect Native New England with university research, innovation, and education. Prior to arriving at the University of Massachusetts-Boston, Cedric completed a study on the evolution of tribal government among the Mashpee Wampanoag Tribe and the Mashantucket Pequot Tribal Nation. While pursuing his doctoral studies at the University of Connecticut, Cedric served in a variety of capacities for the Mashantucket Pequot Tribal Nation. These positions included Director of Career Development, Research Analyst, Tribal Government Spokesman, and Deputy Chief Operating Officer.

Wahleah Johns is a member of the Navajo (Dine) tribe and the community of Forest Lake, which is one of several communities atop Black Mesa, Arizona. Wahleah’s work with the Black Mesa Water Coalition and Navajo Green Economy Coalition has led to groundbreaking legislative victories for groundwater protection, green jobs and environmental justice. As vice chair of the Navajo Green Economy Commission, Wahleah has been helping to develop green economic opportunities in clean energy and traditional economic practices on the Navajo reservation. Wahleah currently lives Oakland, CA with her husband Billy Parish and their two daughters Tohaana and Alowaan.

Nicole Friederichs is Practitioner-in-Residence at Suffolk University Law School in Boston. She teaches and manages Suffolk’s Indigenous Peoples Rights Clinic, which supports tribes and indigenous communities in their nation-building activities and advocacy efforts, while providing law students an opportunity to work on legal projects and cases. Prior to joining Suffolk, Nicole practiced federal Indian law and international human rights law working on a range of cases, including jurisdictional cases between Native American tribes and New England states, and indigenous peoples land rights cases before the international and regional human rights bodies. She holds a LLM in Indigenous Peoples Law and Policy from the University of Arizona, a J.D. from Suffolk University Law School and is a graduate of Mount Holyoke College.