[Marxism] Fort Lewis College professor's article stirs racial tension

["Hunter Gray" <hunterbadbear@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

NOTE BY HUNTER BEAR:

I have never been an admirer of Ft Lewis College -- located at Durango,
Colorado in the Four Corners region. Although it now has a relatively large
Native student enrollment,  how many Indian faculty are there is
speculative.  When I taught for several years at the main campus of Navajo
Community College [now Dine' College], Tsaile [Say Lee], Navajo Nation, a
number of Navajo and some Utes were there from that Four Corners setting,
and were also at the even closer [to them] NCC branch campus at Shiprock, NM
[near Farmington.] They had not been interested in Ft Lewis College.
Sensitivity and confidentiality are always critically necessary in relating
to people -- students or otherwise.  Those qualities don't seem to  be at
the Ft Lewis fore -- at least not pervasively.

Among the great anthropologists who worked on a life long basis with Native
Americans were Frank Speck of the University of Pennsylvania [working
especially with the Northeastern hunting tribes] and Clyde Kluckhohn of
Harvard [with the Navajo].  They and others of their honorable breed never
printed things deemed by Indian people to be private and confidential --
and they also cleared sensitive material with elders and medicine people.

Fort Lewis College professor's article stirs racial tension

By Electa Draper
Denver Post Staff Writer

Sunday, November 21, 2004 -

Durango - A quest by American Indian students at Fort Lewis College to
discipline a professor they accuse of subtle racism and unethical behavior
has stirred long-simmering racial tensions at the campus.

Andrew Gulliford, head of the school's prestigious Center of Southwest
Studies, published an account in a scholarly journal about the rewards and
pitfalls of teaching tribal members about their own cultures.
In response, 12 students formed the Student Alliance for Appropriate
Representation. They hosted a week of almost nightly forums on the campus
marked by angry confrontations. The week ended with the gathering of public
testimony Thursday night to submit to federal and state civil rights
commissions.

But some college and community members rose to Gulliford's defense. Several
said he shouldn't be made the scapegoat for long-running resentments on the
campus.

Gulliford has declined requests for interviews but made two public apologies
to students for "serious mistakes" with his work, "The Kokopelli Conundrum,"
published in the October issue of American Studies International.

College administrators will meet on the matter in executive session Dec. 1.

The furor has shaken the college of about 4,400 students, of which almost
one-fifth are American Indians from more than 50 different Indian nations.
Fort Lewis has an unusual history that strongly shaped its student body.
Fort Lewis was a cavalry fort used to quell violence between white settlers
and Indian tribes in the Four Corners area of the 1880s.

The fort evolved into an Indian boarding school and later a rural high
school. In 1911, Congress gave the campus, a federal reservation, to the
state of Colorado in return for the state assuming "a sacred trust." The
school was charged with educating American Indians, free of tuition, on
equal terms with white students.

"Everyone thinks it's a free ride for us," 22-year-old student Leah
Carpenter-Kish said of the tuition waiver. "We hear that all the time. But
tribes bring a lot of tribal money to this school."

The Southern Ute Tribe, for example, has made large contributions to the
Center of Southwest Studies.

There are sensitivities on both sides, said exercise science assistant
professor Jim Cross. He questioned the appropriateness of American Indians
burning sage and offering a prayer before a Tuesday night forum in a room
packed with Indians and non-Indians.

"The intent of the prayer was not to harm some people. But some people were
offended a prayer was said at a public meeting over a public microphone,"
Cross said.

"It is clear these issues have been festering for a long time," said Jeanne
Brako, who works with Gulliford at the center.

Many students and the Faculty Senate have harshly criticized Gulliford for
stereotyping American Indians and for callous disregard of his own students'
privacy.

He recounted students' stories about sacred rituals, quoted some test
answers and even described medical and family histories in the article
without the students' knowledge or consent. He used many students' real
first names.

"In his article, in his apology, in his history he has shown us he is
incapable of understanding our complexity," said Bill Mendoza, a 28-year-old
student and Lakota who co-founded the student alliance pushing for
Gulliford's ouster.

But Southern Ute tribal member Kenny Frost, who consults on Native American
culture with many universities, said he has worked with Gulliford for years
and finds his intentions honorable.

"He has been trusted with a lot of native stories by elders to help educate
people," Frost told students Thursday. "There's no legal protection for our
legends and stories that we tell professors. They have been written about in
books for years. If you don't want something known, don't say it. But why
are you here? So you can share diverse experiences."

Many believe Gulliford's personal flair and other impressive publications
have brought new attention, even luster, to the 40-year-old Center of
Southwest Studies.

Paulette Church, who identified herself as just a member of the community,
said that Gulliford has been an able ambassador between ethnic communities.

"You can't be in a room with him for five minutes and not know how he values
the Native American cultures," Church said.

But Gulliford's detractors are outraged that he generalized about students
by calling them "impeccably polite" and "quiet and well-groomed, with
sometimes irrepressible laughter." He also wrote that "succeeding in school
for these students is not easy."

He wrote about students who missed class because of family healing rituals,
which he described.

Jimmie Jefferson, a Southern Ute scholar who attended Fort Lewis, said
teachers here are not sensitive to the Indian way.

"Teachers must understand native students if they are to teach them,"
Jefferson said.

Jan Sallinger, Faculty Senate member and associate professor of political
science, told Gulliford: "This offends me to my core. You have harmed all of
us as an academic facility. I find it unconscionable that you all people,
the head of Southwest Studies, would not be aware of the potential
consequences of your words."

Gulliford also wrote in his controversial piece: "I am supposed to be
teaching (Native American students), but often they are teaching me, and the
lessons I learn are profound."





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