Winona LaDuke addresses

Public Lands Symposium
She was 15 minutes late, but the nearly 200 people who gathered in 175 Knight Law Center on Thursday to hear 2000 Green Party vice presidential candidate, author, environmentalist and indigenous rights activist Winona LaDuke speak weren’t complaining.
Before her speech, members of the Native American Law Students Association presented LaDuke with strings of beads and a Navajo-style blanket to widespread applause as group member Raymond Zakari introduced her as “a sage.”
LaDuke’s keynote address kicked off the Journal of Environmental Law and Litigation’s Public Lands Symposium, which will run from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. today at the law center and will feature attorneys, environmental leaders and university professors from all over the United States.
In her hour-long speech, LaDuke addressed the issue of sustainable use of public lands and the laws governing land practices, as well as the differing opinions about land use between environmental groups and Native Americans. She pointed to the formation of national parks out of Indian land in the early 20th century and the loss of control over the surviving buffalo herds in recent decades as prime examples of the division between conservationists and Native Americans.
“We are fighting over the crumbs that remain of this great land,” she said.
LaDuke also criticized the energy policies of the Bush administration and at one point referred to Vice President Dick Cheney as “Dr. Evil,” saying the vice president’s support for increased nuclear power seemed characteristic of someone “who had been frozen for 30 years and then came back to life.”
It was a sort of homecoming for LaDuke, who said she spent a good portion of her life in the mountains of southern Oregon. She advocated the return of publicly-held reservation lands to Native Americans and called on Oregonians to make “an earnest commitment” to restoring the habitat of the Klamath Basin.

— Leon Tovey

CAER sponsors annual

environmental conference
The eighth annual Environmental and Economic Justice Conference begins today with a keynote speech by Jeri Sundvall, director of the Environmental Justice Action Group in Portland.
She will speak in 110 Knight Law Center following an opening presentation by University School of Law Professor Robin Morris Collin.
The conference is sponsored by the Coalition Against Environmental Racism and will continue through the weekend with panel presentations and workshops.
Saturday’s panel and workshop topics include institutional racism, environmental justice litigation, legal ethics and health mapping.
Rev. Damu Smith of Greenpeace will speak at 7 p.m. Saturday in 175 Knight Law Center. Community Coalition for Environmental Justice director Yalonda Sinde is tentatively scheduled to speak as well, but she may not be able to attend because of travel considerations, CAER co-director Matt Murphy said.
On Sunday, conference events include a lead poisoning and pesticides discussion in Spanish and a Northwest People of Color information session.
Admission is free. For more information about the conference, contact CAER at 346-4168.

— Kara Cogswell

University Fulbright Scholars

teach around the world
Three University faculty members were named 2001-02 Fulbright Scholars and are now in Turkey, Russia and Chile lecturing on subjects that include English and Siberian languages and biological oceanography.
University professors Sarah Klinghammer, Thomas Payne and Alan Shanks are lecturing in classrooms throughout the world after being selected as U.S. Fulbright Scholars. The U.S. government’s international exchange program sends 800 U.S. scholars and professionals to lecture and conduct research in more than 140 countries.
Klinghammer, director of American English Institute for the language department, is currently teaching English as a foreign language at Bilkent University in Ankara, Turkey. Payne, research associate for the department of Linguistics, is lecturing and researching linguistic typology of Siberian languages at the Russian Academy of Science in Novosibirsk, Russia. Shanks, associate professor at the Oregon Institute Of Marine Biology, is lecturing and researching on biological oceanography at Catholic University of Chile in Santiago, Chile.
Applicants must meet eligibility requirements in order to qualify for the program. Some of these requirements include a doctorate, Master’s degree or terminal degree at the time of application, and college or university teaching experience and specific foreign language proficiency.

— Katie Ellis