Indigenous Governance Database
White Earth Nation
"Modern Tribal Governments, Constitutions, and Sovereignty" Session at NCAI's Annual Convention
This session, convened by NCAI at its 2014 Annual Convention, chronicled the growing movement by tribal nations to reform and strengthen their constitutions in order to reflect and preserve their distinct cultures and ways of life, more effectively address their contemporary challenges, and achieve…
White Earth Nation Constitution
Location: Minnesota Population: 19000 Date of Constitution: TBD Key Facts: Proposed constitution - scheduled for referendum November 2013
White Earth Suicide Intervention Team
The White Earth Suicide Intervention Team (WESIT) was created in 1990 in response to an extraordinarily high rate of suicide attempts and completions among tribal members living on the White Earth Reservation. With the Tribal Council’s official support, a group of volunteers came together following…
Terry Janis: Citizen Engagement and Constitutional Change at the White Earth Nation (Q&A)
Terry Janis, former Project Manager for the White Earth Constitution Reform Project, fields questions from the audience about his specific role in White Earth's constitutional reform process. He stresses the need for those engaging in constitutional reform to be cognizant of the fact that a process…
Good Native Governance Break Out 3: Tribal Constitutional Revitalization
UCLA School of Law "Good Native Governance" conference presenters, panelists and participants Melissa L. Tatum, Devon Lee Lomayesva, and Jill Doerfler discuss constitutional reform efforts. Melissa describes the purpose of consitutions. Using her own Nation's experience, Devon discusses the Iipay…
Ian Record: Constitutional Reform: Some Perspectives on Process
Dr. Ian Record, NNI Manager of Educational Resources, provides a broad overview of the inherent difficulties involved with constitutional reform, the different processes that Native nations are developing to engage in constitutional reform, and some of the effective reform strategies that NNI is…
Andrew Martinez: Constitutional Reform: The Secretarial Election Process
Native Nations Institute's Andrew Martinez (Salt River Pima-Maricopa Indian Community) gives participants a concise and informative overview of how the secretarial election process works when Native nations amend their constitutions, and what happens (and doesn't) when Native nations remove the…
Robert Hershey and Andrew Martinez: The Legal Process of Constitutional Reform (Q&A)
Robert Hershey and Andrew Martinez engage participants in a lively discussion about the intricacies of secretarial elections and whether and how Native nations with Indian Reorganization Act constitutions should remove the Secretary of Interior approval clause from those governing documents.
Terry Janis: The White Earth Nation Constitutional Reform Process
In this lively and far-reaching discussion with NNI's Ian Record, Terry Janis (Oglala Lakota), former project manager of the White Earth Nation Constitution Reform Project, provides an overview of the citizen education and engagement campaign that preceded White Earth's historic vote to ratify a…
Terry Janis: Citizen Engagement and Constitutional Change at the White Earth Nation
Terry Janis (Oglala Lakota), former Project Manager of the White Earth Nation Constitution Reform Project, provides participants with a detailed overview of the multi-faceted approach to citizen engagement that the White Earth Nation followed as it worked to educate the White Earth people about the…
Jill Doerfler and Matthew Fletcher: Defining Citizenship: Blood Quantum vs. Descendancy (Q&A)
Panelists Jill Doerfler and Matthew Fletcher fields questions from the audience, and several participants offer their heartfelt perspectives on the complicated cultural and social dynamics surrounding citizenship and identity in their respective Native nations and communities. This video resource…
John Borrows and Stephen Cornell: Citizenship: Culture, Language and Law (Q&A)
Professors John Borrows and Stephen Cornell field questions from conference participants about a number of topics surrounding Indigenous notions of citizenship and membership. In addition, some participants provide brief commentaries about how their particular Native nations are wrestling with this…
Jill Doerfler: Defining Citizenship: Blood Quantum vs. Descendancy
Scholar Jill Doerfler (Anishinaabe) talks about the colonial origins of blood quantum as a criterion for determining "Indian" and tribal identity, and explains how the federal government imposed that criterion upon the White Earth people in order to divest them of their land. She also stresses the…
Jill Doerfler and Carole Goldberg: Key Things a Constitution Should Address: Who Are We and How Do We Know? (Q&A)
Presenters Jill Doerfler and Carole Goldberg field questions from seminar participants about the various criteria that Native Nations are using to define citizenship, and some of the implications that specific criteria present.
Jill Doerfler: Constitutional Reform at the White Earth Nation
In this in-depth interview with NNI's Ian Record, Anishinaabe scholar Jill Doerfler discusses the White Earth Nation's current constitutional reform effort, and specifically the extensive debate that White Earth constitutional delegates engaged in regarding changing the criteria for White Earth…
Jill Doerfler: "No Easy Answer": Citizenship Requirements
Anishinaabe scholar Jill Doerfler discusses the process that the White Earth Nation followed to arrive at their new constitution, and details the evolving debate at White Earth about which citizenship criteria it would incorporate into this new governing document.
Honoring Nations: Using Partnerships to Achieve Governing Goals
Heather Kendall-Miller moderates this panel of Native leaders for a discussion on building and maintaining intergovernmental relationships.
Honoring Nations: Miriam Jorgensen: Achieving Good Governance: Cross-Cutting Themes
Miriam Jorgensen, Director of Research for the Native Nations Institute and the Harvard Project on American Indian Economic Development, shares the cross-cutting themes of good governance that exist among the Honoring Nations award-winning programs.
Erma Vizenor: Engaging the Nation's Citizens and Effecting Change: The White Earth Nation Story
White Earth Nation Chairwoman Erma Vizenor discusses some of the historical factors that eventually compelled her and her nation to undertake constitutional reform, and the issues her nation has encountered as they work to ratify a new constitution and governance system.
White Earth Nation caseloads grow as tribe taking over human services cases from surrounding counties
White Earth tribal officials are preparing to begin the final phase of transferring human services cases from surrounding counties to the White Earth Nation. The movement began three years ago when a state law authorized White Earth to take control of all human services programs for its members…