Issues for Native Peoples

Nearly every Native American nation is engaged in a struggle to preserve sacred lands, due in part to the Native place- and space-based understanding of sacredness, which is at odds with American legal frameworks. Native American rights are often...

In 1990, after centuries of struggle to protect the integrity of the dead and material items of religious and cultural significance, Native communities witnessed the creation of an important process for protection: the Native American Graves Protection...

The constitutionally guaranteed free exercise of religion for Native Americans has been violated throughout the history of the United States. Violent repression of native practices, the withholding of resources from Native communities, and the devaluing...

Many Native communities who chose not to enroll for recognition during the Indian Reorganization Act of 1934 are still unrecognized by the U.S. government. Without federal recognition, these Native communities’ treaties and lands are unprotected, and they...

After generations of forced assimilation policies explicitly targeting the disuse of Native languages, many indigenous languages are dead or on the verge of becoming so. To address language loss, Native communities have established many educational and...