U. law journal sponsors symposium

Some would claim that in Penn's graduate schools, Native Americans, their culture and their laws are mostly neglected.

A group of law students and faculty, however, are determined to take some steps toward correcting this perceived flaw.

The University of Pennsylvania Journal of Constitutional Law hosted a symposium at the Law School this weekend entitled "Native Americans and the Constitution." The event examined the conflicts between the laws of the federal government and those of Native American tribes.

According to Journal Symposium Editor Kevin Maillard, the roughly 30 symposium participants, both faculty and students, discussed the issue of tribal sovereignty in America.

Maillard said he saw this year's symposium as an opportunity to discuss a pertinent and personal issue.

"I am the only Native [American] law student at Penn," Maillard said. "I'm from the Seminole Nation of Oklahoma, so I thought it was a big step to convince my journal to do this topic."

Maillard was chiefly responsible for organizing the event, and he chose speakers that he believed were highly qualified.

"They are all experts in Native American law," Maillard said.

Maillard said he felt the symposium was necessary to draw attention to the fact that state schools in the west had better Native American law studies than most Ivy League schools.

"I wanted to bring Indian law as a viable source of academic inquiry into the Ivy League," he said.

Other speakers at the symposium also said they wanted more attention given to the topic.

"Native American law is something that has been generally neglected in the east," said Andrew Smith, editor-in-chief of the Journal. "We're behind contemporaries in the west."

At the symposium, the participants presented papers on various issues affecting Native American populations across the country.

"The premise was to draw attention to very serious issues affecting the country... the deprivation of rights concerning Native Americans," said Jason Abel, a Journal associate editor. "The issues that were raised were of great import."

The three editors all said they feel that there is a lack of Native American students, faculty and education at Penn.

"I don't think there's enough [courses] based on Native American culture, there needs to be more," Abel said. He added that there is "one Native American in law school out of 720 students."

Event organizers said they thought the symposium was beneficial and hoped that having experts from all over the country converging at Penn would raise awareness of Native American topics.

"The symposium established a dialogue that consists of proposals for change," Smith said. "It was good to see how many of Penn Law faculty had interest or background in this area."

Please note All comments are eligible for publication in The Daily Pennsylvanian.