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As you step into the offices of University of Arizona Law’s Indigenous Peoples Law and Policy (IPLP) Program, you’re immediately greeted by the words of founding faculty member Vine Deloria, Jr.:
“Every society needs educated people, but the primary responsibility of educated people is to bring wisdom back into the community and make it available to others so that the lives they are leading make sense.”
Numerous IPLP alumni have heeded Prof. Deloria’s words and become educators at the law school level, including Nazune Menka (’18) and Mia Montoya Hammersley (’18).
This summer Nazune started as the faculty director of the Northwest Center for Indigenous Law and assistant professor of law at the Seattle University School of Law (SU Law). Nazune is a Denaakk’e (Koyukon Athabaskan) and Lumbee and teaches and writes about Indigenous Peoples and Native Nations, constitutional law, legal history, property law and environmental law and policy. She previously served as the executive director of the Center for Indigenous Law & Justice at Berkeley Law, and she was selected as a 2024–25 Obama Foundation USA Leader.
“I think the most rewarding part of the work is hearing from students years later about the impact you’ve had on them, that and being able to research and write for our communities in a deeply respectful way. Writing as an Indigenous scholar is different from writing Indigenous scholarship. And while I deeply respect and appreciate the allies in this area of law, we absolutely need more law scholars who are from our communities,” she says.
Mia is the director of Climate Justice at the Public Health Law Center, where she leads a team providing legal technical assistance on climate-justice issues to advocates, community groups, local and tribal governments. She was previously the director of the Environmental Justice Clinic and an assistant professor of law at the Vermont Law & Graduate School. In 2021, she was a recipient of the Young, Gifted, and Green 40 Under 40 Award by Black Millennials for Flint for her work in the field of environmental justice. Mia is a member of the Piro-Manso-Tiwa Indian Tribe, Pueblo of San Juan de Guadalupe, and of Yoeme (Yaqui) descendant.
Reflecting on her career in legal education thus far, Mia states, “I feel strongly that sharing the skills I have gained through my legal practice and my lived experience with budding advocates is essential to sustaining movement work and to safeguarding our communities for the next seven generations.”
The IPLP Program will be co-hosting the 2nd Annual Tribal Education Symposium, honoring the legacy of Vine Deloria, Jr., November 20–21.
To learn more about Nazune and Mia, see the full story.
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