March for Equity at U of U

Join us in a protest march for American Indian educational equity!

When: Thursday December 4, 2008

Where: American Indian Resource Center
1925 De Trobriand Street, #622, Fort Douglas

Time: 2:30-6:00 pm
(March route will begin at 2:30 pm at the AIRC, 3:30 Union building, 4:00 Park
building)

Target of protest: University of Utah administrators and policies

Why: Anytime an American Indian leader, student or support (person of color) has
resisted or voiced concern/opposition toward U policies—they have been met with
hostility and alienation. This tension has built up so much that critical university
leaders, faculty, and staff have been forced to leave the institution by both termination
and choice.

• Loss of American Indian leaders and support on campus
  In recent incidences, when American Indian students, staff and faculty have challenged university policy, asking for changes to be made that would better serve the Native students and community, instead of coming together to listen and compromise, the university has met these efforts with hostility and alienation. This tension has built up so much that critical university leaders, faculty, and staff have been forced to leave the university through termination and/or for fear of their safety and well-being.
  

• Mysterious “leave” of American Indian leader after recent racist t-shirt scandal
  It took 12 years for the university to hire a director for the American Indian Resource Center—an effort they were very proud of in May 2008. Yet this director is now on administrative leave and Native students are left without this support system, right before final exams and registration for next semester.
  

• Abuse of American Indian (nick)name, likeness, and imagery for University profit
  Its continued use of the “Ute” nickname and its consequent reluctance to monitor the use of the name by fans and university licensed merchants which has resulted in hostile, racist, and abusive acts and comments to be levied against American Indians.
  

• Loss of critical programs and fellowships for American Indian students and communities
  The university has not honored the blood and sacrifice of past American Indian peoples and the treaties that were made to ensure that latter generations would receive the proper academic preparation and support to survive. Instead the university has sent back millions of dollars to the federal government and has shut the doors to its successful American Indian Teacher Training Program to American Indians who desire to become teachers.
  

• Withholding of academic support for currently enrolled American Indian students
  In the past year, the university did not hire a replacement for neither the American Indian advisor in CESA nor an American Indian professor in the College of Education in a timely manner, instead, Native students were left without these support systems for nearly a whole academic year.
  

• Exploitation of Ute tribe
  The university made promises to the Northern Ute tribe to help Ute students get college educations in exchange for the continued use of the “Ute” nickname. The university appealed to the NCAA and cited this agreement, as well as the many ways in which they support Natives on campus and in the community. This appeal removed the university from the NCAA list of schools who needed to address their use of American Indian mascots. To this date, the university denies that it made promises to the Ute community and it continues to treat Native people inequitably.
  

By marching together we hope to (1) raise awareness of the university’s attempts to silence American Indian students, staff, and faculty who protest university policies that ultimately alienate, divide and destroy American Indian communities and (2) to urge the University to uphold its commitment to Native communities by creating scholarships and programs that exist, in reality, to support Native students. We are asking for community support to lend a voice to these issues and to call for an investigation into the treatment of Native peoples at the University of Utah.

New T-Shirts Emerge on the University of Utah Campus

Uof U Approved T Shirts 06 Nov08

View SlideShare document or Upload your own.

A Closer Look at One of the University of Utah's "Traditions"

In the early 90's the University of Utah officially changed it's mascot from a caricature of Ute to Swoop, the red-tailed hawk, but insisted on continuing to use "Utes" as a nickname for the institution.

More than 10 years later, on August 4, 2005, the National College Athletics Association announced a ban on all schools that utilized American Indian images, nicknames and mascots. 18 offending schools would be barred from continuing to use the offensive imagery or nicknames and banned hosting post-season NCAA sanctioned tournaments. The University of Utah appealed the NCAA Decision shortly thereafter and in September ESPN reported that the University of Utah was removed from the list
following "two letters in support of the university's position, one from Maxine Natchees, chairwoman of the Uintah and Ouray Tribal Business Committee, and one from Craig Thompson, commissioner of the Mountain West Conference."

Since then, the University of Utah has purportedly worked to honor the Ute tribe, yet despite official statements that say the University has stayed away from offensive imagery, official public documents, such as the History section of the official University of Utah Trademarks and Licensing website displays a University of Utah fan dressed in warpaint and a headdress:



The depicted university student is surrounded by members of the Mighty Utah Students Section, a student organization created in 2002 that, according to it's Official "spirit guide" of student conduct asks students "not to disrespect the Ute tribe or other Native Americans" and lists a set of "don't" behaviors which are:
"No war paint.
No drum and feather headdresses.
No tomahawk chops, war dances or other imitations of Native American traditional activities."

Though this organization was created nearly a decade after the University of Utah "Utes" mascot was changed, the caricature of war paint and headdresses continues due to the use of the "Utes" nickname. While the University makes public statements about respecting the Ute tribe and removing the harmful imagery, official "Traditions" images speak louder than these words of "honor."

BYU Images

These two photos were taken at the volleyball game between the University of Utah and Brigham Young University in Provo Utah on November 9, 2007.





The Coalition has created a petition in response to these irresponsible and offensive images, which we hope you will read and sign.

What happened to the American Indian Teacher Training Program?

In July of 2007, the University of Utah’s American Indian Teacher Training Program (AITTP) received nearly $2 million in federal grant monies from the Office of Indian Education. This money was to be used to recruit 20 American Indian students to the university to be trained as educators so they could return to their communities and teach in schools that serve Indian children. AITTP is a program run by Indigenous people, for Indigenous people and their communities. AITTP’s mission is based on years of research that suggests that Indigenous children do better in school when they have Indigenous teachers who look like them, understand their language, and understand their cultural background. AITTP has been a national success, graduating 30 educators over the past five years, with nine others on track for graduation in May 2008.

Since the receipt of the $2 million in grant monies, university senior administration in partnership with member of the College of Education, including the Dean, Michael Hardman, have incessantly attacked AITTP, its directors, both past and present, and its students. They have refused to let AITTP directors recruit new students, publicly and incorrectly framed the program as “mismanaged,” taken away signatory authority from the director, withheld the director’s salary, and more importantly, failed to support the current AITTP students by not providing necessary things such as textbooks and tutors. AITTP staff jobs have been repeatedly threatened and one staff member was even told that she was not “genetically engineered” to run the grants. In addition, students have been framed as liars and not trustworthy by the College of Education. These are just a few of the examples of the ways in which Indigenous peoples have been attacked on a campus that exploits them on a daily basis with their mascot, the “Ute.”

On 15 February 2008, Dean Michael Hardman proposed to terminate the grant projects and on 22 February 2008 Senior Vice President for Academic Affairs, David Pershing, agreed. AITTP directors were not consulted regarding this decision, rather, they were told that the projects were terminated only after the decision was final. AITTP, a successful program that took over five arduous years to build, was decimated in a matter of months. Sending millions (in this case $2 million) in grant money back to the funding source is an act previously unheard of at the university. What kind of university would deliberately deny support and access to education to Indigenous people in this way? What kind of university would treat indigenous students and staff like this? What kind of university would target a specific group of people, and their community, and not take responsibilities for their actions through formal apologies and recompense?

To further understand the impact of this decision, consider that since the inception of the University of Utah’s College of Education in 1979 up to 2002 (a span of 26 years), university records suggest only 14 American Indians graduated from the department. However, since AITTP emerged as a force on campus, a total of 39 American Indian students have graduated or will graduate. That is nearly triple the number in less than a quarter of the time!

The Coalition to Protect American Indian Education Rights believe the situation at the University of Utah is a classic case of Indigenous peoples’ fight for sovereignty and for the right to equal access to education. The fight is against those in power who want Indigenous people and their children to fail. Therefore, we have compiled a list of initiatives to correct this horrendous injustice. To see a list of these initiatives please click here.

Mission and Objectives of the Coalition

We are a grassroots organization focused on ensuring the educational equality of Indigenous persons by:

1) Assisting those individuals or groups of individuals that feel their voice is not being heard by Educational institutions and Government agencies throughout the United States. With the support of the Freedom of Information Act (FOI) we gather facts and data to create a case that provides complete and accurate information on injustices toward American Indians related to Education and federally guaranteed rights under the United States’ Department of Education’s Office of Indian Education Title VII of the Public Law 107-110 (115 STAT. 1907), also known as the No Child Left Behind Act.

2) Working toward eliminating racial hatred and racial discrimination in institutional policy and practice by informing key American Indian Education personnel (non-indigenous and indigenous alike) in the areas of American Indian Education throughout the United States. These key individuals are experienced leaders who have been successful at reforming American Indian Education and educating non-American Indians of concerns affecting Indigenous communities for many years. It is these key American Indian Education advocates who then take the case(s) of the unheard individuals to key stakeholders within the responsible Education institution or Government agencies.

Principal Objectives of The Coalition:

• To ensure and protect the educational equality of all Indigenous people in the U.S.

• To achieve education equality of rights and eliminate race prejudice and discriminatory practices by Education institutions and Government agencies

• To seek enactment and enforcement of federal, state, and local laws securing Educational rights of Indigenous people thru Title VII

• To inform the public of the adverse effects of Educational discrimination and to seek its elimination

• To educate persons as to their federally protected rights and to take all lawful action to secure the exercise thereof

• To take any other lawful action(s) necessary to further these objectives, consistent with federal law

History of the American Indian Teacher Training Program

Background of AITTP
The University of Utah’s American Indian Teacher Training Program (AITTP) was created in 2002 when the university applied for and was awarded a professional training grant from the United States’ Department of Education’s Office of Indian Education. The creation of these grants is rooted in Title VII of the Public Law 107-110 (115 STAT. 1907), also known as the No Child Left Behind Act. On p. B-27, the Act states, “It is the policy of the United States to fulfill the federal Government’s unique and continuing trust relationship with and responsibility to the Indian people for the education of Indian children” (20 USC 7401). Later, the same document argues that part of this commitment includes “The training of Indian persons as educators and counselors and in other professions serving Indian people” (p. B-28). It is from these professional grants that Section 7121: Improvement of Educational Opportunities for Indian Children” (20 USC 7441) created, that the program was born. The original grant, just shy of $1 million dollars, provided funding to prepare twelve American Indian pre-service teachers to teach in schools that served American Indian populations. After being awarded the grant in 2002, the public relations department at the University of Utah created press releases to tout the program and newspapers picked up the press releases across the country. As a result of this, the program was deluged by interested applicants. 132 applications were examined for the twelve spots. Twelve students were admitted to the University and the program. These students began classes in June 2003. Since 2002, the program received three additional grants from the U.S. Department of education to continue training new students.

What AITTP offers
The University of Utah’s American Indian Teacher Training Program grant is a three-year program that includes one year of professional induction services. In essence, students come to the university as having a range of college experience including having begun but not completed a bachelor’s degree, to having completed a bachelor’s degree and working toward completing a master’s degree. Enrolled AITTP students receive their teacher preparation (leading to licensure) before entering the teaching work force. AITTP students receive a monthly stipend to be used for living expenses, tuition, a laptop computer and printer for use while in the program, health insurance, dependent assistance, books, training fees, tutoring services, closely supervised programs, and moving expenses. The hope of AITTP creators and personnel is that students can focus on the business of completing their preparation programs without financial, academic, social, or emotional concerns.

AITTP is not a scholarship program
However, this grant comes with a hook as AITTP renders services and offers financial and academic supports that participants are required to pay back to the federal government by teaching in Indian serving schools. In other words, AITTP is a payback program (not a scholarship that carries no obligations) in which program participants are required to teach in Indian-serving schools (as defined by the Office of Indian Education) for the same number of years they receive federal/programmatic support. Each participant signs a payback agreement in which they agree to this commitment. If they fail to earn licensure, they must reimburse the federal government for the services received from the University. The relationship between the U.S. government and tribal sovereigns enables programs that carry payback agreements to be federally funded.

Qualifications interested applicants meet
AITTP students are admitted to the University under regular admissions policies and to the teacher education program with qualifications that meet the minimum requirements for admission. Historically, the students who participate in AITTP are among some of the strongest academic minds entering the academy. Each of the four AITTP cohorts has had, at least, a cumulative grade point average of just over 3.5 (on a scale of 4.0).