Carrying Wisdom Forward: IPLP’s Lasting Impact on Indigenous Legal Education

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.” 

This guiding vision breathes life into the IPLP Program, whose mission is to protect and promote Indigenous human rights, while educating and mentoring the next generation of Indigenous lawyers, advocates and educators who will carry wisdom back to their communities. The IPLP Program will be co-hosting the 2nd Annual Tribal Education Symposium, honoring the legacy of Vine Deloria, Jr., Nov. 20–21. 

There is a dire need not just for Native attorneys, but also for Native legal educators. According to U.S. Department of Education data, as of fall 2021, American Indian or Alaska Native faculty held only 0.4% of full-time faculty positions at public four-year institutions and 0.2% at private nonprofit four-year institutions.  

“As one of the leading Indigenous law programs in the world, we take immense pride in seeing our graduates step into roles as teachers, mentors and leaders in Indigenous law. Their work carries our mission forward and ensures that Indigenous voices and perspectives continue to shape the future of law,” said Professor Keith Richotte, director of the IPLP Program and an IPLP LLM alumnus. 

IPLP Alumni Tapped to Lead Indigenous Law Programs 

This summer IPLP alumna Nazune Menka (’18) 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).  

Professor Menka 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. Prior to joining SU Law, she 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’ve always viewed myself as an academic and as someone who views education as a lifelong endeavor,” says Menka. “When I took federal Indian law with Professor Robert Williams as an elective during my doctoral program for environmental chemistry, I was blown away by not only the content of the class but by Professor Williams’ storytelling prowess. I applied for law school that same semester.  

“At first the desire to go to law school was simple, to be of service to tribal nations and Indigenous peoples, but after working at a law firm for a year I longed for the intellectual freedom and time to research and write. I began looking for public interest work in Indigenous law and started a fellowship at UC Berkeley School of Law in Tribal Cultural Resources, which eventually led me to teaching federal Indian law and creating an undergraduate legal studies course on settler colonialism and decolonization. Working with Seth Davis at Berkeley Law solidified my interest in becoming law faculty and I entered the law faculty market in Fall 2022. Having good mentors has been extraordinarily important.” 

When asked about what drives her, Menka notes, “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. For example, I’m the only tenure-track Alaska Native law professor in the country, so I feel a responsibility to educate the legal academy about Alaska Native issues. I have an article coming out in the December issue of the Alaska Law Review where I discuss the importance of understanding Alaska Native tribal sovereignty in the same way as we understand it in the Lower 48. I’m hoping to do similar work on state recognized tribes, like the Lumbee, which I am also descended from.” 

Fellow IPLP alumna Mia Montoya Hammersley (’18) 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. Hammersley 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, Professor Hammersley states, “My years directing the Environmental Justice Clinic at the Vermont Law & Graduate School, where I also taught Native Americans & the Law and a Race & the Law 1L course, have been some of the most fulfilling of my career so far. 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. 

“As I navigated academia, I often relied on the knowledge and relationships that I gained from the IPLP Program, whether it be utilizing course materials that were meaningful to me as a student or calling mentors for advice when I needed guidance.” 

IPLP’s Global Impact on Indigenous Legal Education 

“When Professor Jim Anaya and I co-founded IPLP with our mentor, the late Vine Deloria, Jr., our vision was clear: to empower Native and Indigenous peoples with the knowledge and skills to become powerful educators and advocates for Indigenous human rights. One of my greatest honors has been mentoring so many of these future leaders—legal educators who are now guiding the next generation of Indigenous human rights defenders and carrying this work into communities around the world,” said Robert A. Williams, Jr., founding faculty member of the IPLP Program. 

The ripple effects of the IPLP Program are evident in classrooms, courtrooms and communities across the globe. From mentoring future lawyers to shaping entire programs dedicated to Indigenous law, IPLP alumni are advancing Indigenous human rights and ensuring that Indigenous perspectives remain central to the evolution of legal education. As the program continues to grow, its graduates carry forward Vine Deloria Jr.’s vision—bringing wisdom back to their communities and making the law more just, inclusive and responsive for generations to come.