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As part of Indian Culture Week, a pow-wow will
begin Friday featuring Indian dancing and food. The
pow-wow will continue through Sunday.
For the event, Indian student organizations and tribal
councils have been invited from Nebraska and five other
states.
The fact that this is the first such Indian Culture
Week in Nebraska perhaps best illustrates how the state
of Nebraska has neglected the indigenous Indian
population. Or, if that correlation doesn't seem to be
compelling, try this one: the University of Nebraska has
had only one Indian graduate since 1867. She is Alice
Neundorf, Indian counselor in the Office of Student
Affairs. She studied at the University for a masters
degree. The University has never had an Indian graduate
from the undergraduate level. For those who are not
familiar with the problems Indians face and those
unconvinced of the need for a commitment to the
Indians by the University of Nebraska, consider the
following data from the U.S. Senate Sub-Committee on
Indian Education.
1. The average educational level for the Indian is the
fifth grade.
2. Drop-out rates range anywhere from 40 to 100 per
cent, depending on the reservation.
3. Only 16 per cent of the teachers who teach Indian
children are of Indian extraction.
4. 25 per cent of the teachers who teach Indian
children admit that they "don't like" teaching Indians.
5. 40,000 Navajos, nearly a third of the entire tribe,
are "functional illiterates" in English.
6. Only 18 per cent of the students in federal Indian
schools go on to college. (The national average for
whites is 50 per cent).
7. Only 3 per cent of Indian students who enroll in
college will graduate. (The national average for whites is
32 per cent).
8. The Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA) spends only
$18. per year, per child on textbooks and supplies. (The
national average is $40 per child).
9. Only one of every 100 Indian college students or
graduates will receive a master's degree.
10. Despite a Presidential directive two years ago,
only one of the 226 B.I. A. schools is governed by an
elective school board.
11. Approximately 16,000 Indian children are not in
school at all.
1 2. Indian children, more than any other group, feel
themselves to be "below average" in intelligence.
13. Indian children in the 12th grade have the
poorest self-concept of all minority groups in the
country.
The above material is only a small part from the most
tragic chapter in American history. And by and large, it
is also the most distorted chapter in American history
books. But that is no excuse to mistreat our Indian
brother.
Likewise, neither the state legislature, nor the
governor, nor the University of Nebraska is under any
obligation to believe the lies and distortions of the past.
It is unfortunate that we haven't listened to more
truthful accounts of Indian life, like some of the
literature of Nebraska's own poet laureate, John
Niehardt.
The University now has 18 Indian students. It should
be hoped that the University can make a more
meaningful commitment than that. Next year the
University will be offering three courses in Indian
American Studies-the need for expansion in this area is
best illustrated by our ignorance of the peaceful people
we call "savages."
Also, as evidenced in the above data, there is a crying
need for teachers qualified to teach Indian students.
Teachers College does not now fulfill that need.
Teachers must learn to understand the Indian culture
before they can teach anything to the Indians.
This weekend will be an excellent opportunity to
learn about the Indian culture at the pow-wow.
Learning is only the beginning. The Indian needs
educated white men to help him in his struggle, to help
him until he has his own Indian lawyers and doctors.
This very day, the Winnebago Indian Tribe of
Nebraska needs your help. The tribe is now in a legal
battle with the Army Corps of Engineers. The
Winnebagos are trying desperately to block an attempt
to create a recreation complex along the Missouri River.
A recent resolution of the Winnebago tribal council has
expressed the determination of the tribe to "oppose'any
efforts to take this last possession from us."
Right here in Nebraska, folks.
( For information on the Winnebago problems, talk to
tribal representatives at the pow-wow. For more general
information, and for excellent reading about the Indian
culture, purchase a subscription of the Warpath
newspaper. The Warpath, United Native Americans Inc
P. O. Box 26149, San Francisco, Calif. 94126. Editor
Lehman Brightman was one of the speakers at the
University for Indian Culture Week. Copies of his speech
are available in the office of the Daily Nebraskan.J
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WASHINGTONIn his 1968
campaign, Richard Nixon called for "a
new attorney general with a- new
attitude, a new awareness and a new
determination." It was an odd theme:
Nobody expected him if elected, to
reappoint President Johnson's
attorney general. But the events of last
week suggest that maybe he should
have.
The events pitted former Atty.
Gen. Ramsey Clark against President
Nixon's new team. They had their
origin last March when John Kerry,
antiwar veterans' leader, approached
Clark to see whether his organization
could get a permit for a week-long
Washington demonstration. Clark
secured agreement from Justice that
the veterans could use public facilities
during the week from 9 a.m. until
4:30 p.m.
BUT ON F R I D A Y .April 16, the
last working day before the
demonstration was to begin, the
Justice Department notified Clark that
it would seek an injunction that
afternoon prohibiting the veterans
from camping all night on the Mall.
Clark hurriedly prepared his case.
The thrust of his argument before
District Court Judge George Hart Jr.
that afternoon was that an injunction
was improper.
In no event, he said, could the
"irreparable harm" which an
injunction is intended to prevent be
demonstrated.
Hart ruled against him, and Clark
took the case to the Court of Appeals.
Unanimously, the three-judge court
NEBRASKAN
overruled Hart. The decision came at
4:30 p.m. on Monday, permitting the
veterans to spend the first night on the
Mall.
THE NEXT DAY, the Justice
Department appealed to Chief Justice
Burger who acted promptly to reverse
the three-man Court of Appeals. His
decision came at 6 p.m., and the
veterans were now in violation of a
court order. Solicitor General Erwin
Griswold called upon Clark to get
them to move.
ONCE AGAIN, the Justice
Department stepped aside. It took no
measures to enforce the injunction it
had gone to such pains to secure. It
was then that Judge Hart, keeping
abreast of the court's interest by radio
and newpaper, decided to act. If the
government didn't want to enforce an
injunction, it should ask that it be
vacated. If it didn't, he would vacate it
anyhow.
And so he did, the next afternoon,
with a blistering attack on the Justice
Department for "degrading the
judiciary." Three courts, including the
highest court in the land, had been
called into sessions to deal with the
problem which the Justice Department
at first did not wish to deal with on its
own, and eventually did not wish to
deal with at all. It was hardly an
example of the "law and order"
the President : likes to praise or of the
"strict constructionism" he avows. It
was political; it was erratic; and it
revealed an Administration constantly
testing the winds of public opinion in
order to determine the law.
FRIDAY, APRIL 30, 1971
THE DAILY