New York Public Schools Banned from Using Native American Mascots

Protesters gather against the name of the Washington Redskins in Minneapolis, Minn. (Photo/Fibonacci Blue via CC-by-2.0)

BY NATIVE NEWS ONLINE STAFF APRIL 19, 2023

The New York Board of Regents has officially banned all uses of Indigenous imagery and names as school mascots, per a report from Albany-based paper Times-Union.


The vote came unanimously Tuesday morning following a proposal announced by New York State’s education department in November. Some districts have gotten ahead of the curve by preemptively changing their mascots, the Times-Union reports, but others attempted to make slighter changes in a bid to keep names like “raiders” or “warriors” sans Indigenous imagery.

An advisory group of Indigenous people roundly rejected those proposed changes and called an argument that such terms communicated respect for their subject matter untrue, pointing to the phrases’ implication of “revering an exterminated group.”

The announcement caused a flurry of protests among residents in Rotterdam, N.Y., in the Mohonasen Central School District, which uses the term “Warriors” as their mascot alongside a logo of three Indigenous faces. Facebook groups surrounding the district were inundated with complaints of changing too much, too fast, in the midst of an overly sensitive public.

Mohonasen Superintendent Shannon Shine wrote in a letter to the community that he planned to seek legal counsel regarding the name change.

“Time is needed to digest the information, to seek legal counsel, to see what additional information is put forward from the NYS Education Department and the NYS Board of Regents, and to plan to further engage with our community stakeholders (parents, alumni, students, faculty/staff, and residents) regarding the new regulations,” Shine wrote.

One route could be securing the blessing of an Indigenous tribe, a venue left open in the Board of Regents’ announcement — but New York State tribes such as the Oneida have already promised to deny such support to anyone, per the Times-Union report.

Tuesday’s vote represents the culmination of an effort that began in 2001 under former Commissioner of Education Richard P. Mills, according to the proposal summary published to the Board of Regents’ website. Mills issued a memorandum “concluding that the Use of Native American symbols or depictions as mascots can become a barrier to building a safe and nurturing school community and improving academic achievement for all students.”

The proposal also builds off of legal precedent established through Cambridge Central School Dist. et al. v New York State Education Dept., et al. in which the Cambridge education board first retired the use of its “Indians” mascot and then attempted to walk that back, prompting a community petition to the Commissioner of Education Betty A. Rosa.

Both Rosa’s initial decision and a later appeal before the State Supreme Court held that Cambridge’s attempt to walk back their retirement of the “Indians” name was “arbitrary” and that the original resolution to retire the name should be upheld.

The decision will go into effect officially on May 3, though education officers expect legal resistance from some schools in the state, the Times-Union reports.

In the wake of historic storms, Māori leaders call for disaster relief and rights


Kerry Marshall / Getty Images

BY JOSEPH LEE, 

GRIST APRIL 19, 2023

This story is published as part of the Global Indigenous Affairs Desk, an Indigenous-led collaboration between Grist, High Country News, ICT, Mongabay, and Native News Online.

In February, Cyclone Gabrielle hit New Zealand, bringing devastating floods and powerful winds, destroying homes, displacing thousands, and killing at least eleven people. Prime Minister Chris Hipkins called it “the most significant weather event New Zealand has seen in this century.” Around 70 percent of destroyed homes were occupied by Indigenous Māori, but Māori leaders say that they have been left out of recovery services and funding.

“Because climate events have gotten more and more intense, it’s at a point of our communities will either get wiped out through more storms or have to choose to leave their homelands,” Renee Raroa, a Ngati Porou Māori representative from Mana Taiao Tairāwhiti in eastern New Zealand, said. “We’re running out of options.”

With the frequency and severity of storms increasing, along with other climate impacts like rising sea levels, Māori peoples are facing increasingly dire climate crises and calling on the United Nations for help. At the United Nations Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues, or UNPFII, Māori representatives called on New Zealand to include Māori people in disaster recovery plans, provide support for Indigenous-led climate initiatives, and fully implement the U.N. Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples – a nonbinding resolution that affirms international Indigenous rights. Māori representatives also called on the U.N. to pressure New Zealand to support Indigenous land rights.

“Cyclone Gabrielle exposed the human rights dimensions of climate change disaster,” said Claire Charters, Māori Indigenous Rights Governance Partner at the New Zealand Human Rights Commission. “Māori rights must be part of all climate change and emergency policy and law.”

The Māori say neglect in the aftermath of the storm is just the latest violation of their human rights by the New Zealand government that could be solved by a national action plan to implement the Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. In 2019, Indigenous leaders and the New Zealand Human Rights Commission began discussions to do just that, but talks were postponed last year, with the government saying that the general public needed more awareness of the plan and its purposes.

But Māori leaders say that the plan fell victim to political maneuvering, with politicians unwilling to tackle a contentious issue ahead of elections. With limited room to work at home, they say bringing their concerns to the U.N. can get conversations moving again in the national system. “We can add pressure back home by being here and by having our public statement heard on the global stage,” Raroa said.

“We must ensure that Māori are centered in the discussions on mitigation and adapting to climate change, and that Indigenous knowledge is more deliberately considered,” a representative from New Zealand’s government said in a statement delivered at the Forum. The representative also highlighted the importance of the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, but did not mention any steps to implement it.

Hannah McGlade, an Indigenous Noongar member of the Permanent Forum from Australia, says that New Zealand’s reluctance to actually implement the declaration is common around the world. The U.S., Canada, and Australia have also been called out at UNPFII for their lack of action to implement the human rights standards. “We do see too great a gap between the declaration principles and the actions and conduct of countries globally,” McGlade said. “There has to be proactive commitments made through the plans.”

Meanwhile, as Māori continue to rebuild their own communities, they are also developing climate and environmental programs based on Indigenous traditions and practice, including reforestation and invasive species control. To fully realize these programs, the Māori say they need both more funding and more freedom to make land use decisions.

“We’re going to make the right choices for our land, so just provide the resources to help us get better,” Raroa said.

This article originally appeared in Grist, a nonprofit, independent media organization dedicated to telling stories of climate solutions and a just future. Learn more at Grist.org

America Was Conceived in Violence; Seemingly, Nothing Has Changed


(Photo/Taken from a banner at the FNX studio in San Bernardino, California by Levi Rickert)

BY LEVI RICKERT

 APRIL 23, 2023

Opinion.

 A week ago on a Thursday evening, Ralph Yarl, a 16-year-old black teenager, was asked by his mother to pick up his 11-year-old twin brothers from their friend’s home in Kansas City. Ralph made an innocent mistake of going to the wrong address.

The mistake almost cost him his life.

He went to the door and rang the doorbell. He was met with a bullet to his head without any conversation other than being told his kind did not belong there. He fell to the ground, and was hit by a second bullet in his arm. Somehow, he made it to a door two houses from where he was shot. The resident there told him to stay on the ground with his hands above his bleeding head, as the occupant called the police.

The shooter was a 84-year-old white man, who told the police he was “scared to death.” So, he shot the 5’8” 140-pound teen.

By all accounts Ralph is an exemplary student who is taking college-accredited courses with hopes of someday attending Princeton. Frankly, does that really matter? If Ralph were a black juvenile delinquent who rang the wrong doorbell, he still should not have been shot.

The story of the shooting made national news. When I first read about it, I was appalled.

Of course, I am constantly dismayed by all of the gun violence in the United States. Breaking news comes to my phone all day; oftentimes I find myself reading about another mass shooting in process. Schools are not safe. Shopping malls are not safe. Even churches and synagogues are not safe from gun violence.

When the shootings occur, politicians are quick to say the victims and families of the victims are in their “thoughts and prayers.” The refrain is worse than a broken record, because absolutely nothing changes.

As Native Americans, we know America was conceived in violence. Our ancestors faced an onslaught of violence from the beginning of European contact. It has been said that the non-Natives came with a Bible in one hand and a gun in the other. If they could not “save” us, they would kill us.

Wars were waged against Native Americans for centuries. The Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA), now under the U.S. Department of the Interior, originated in the War Department, the forerunner to the U.S. Department of Defense, in 1824. Given its origin, it is clear the War Department’s BIA was not created to help Native tribes to become prosperous.

Throughout the 1800s, our ancestors faced massacres filled with violence. As Native Americans we remember the gun violence of Wounded Knee in 1890 and the Sand Creek Massacre where hundreds of men, women, and children were massacred. Those are only two of the acknowledged massacres.

We know that violence is not only perpetrated against Native Americans. American society is so obsessed with guns, it bleeds over to innocent segments of society often.

A new KFF-Washington Post partnership survey released earlier this month says “about one in five adults saying that they have personally been threatened with a gun (21%) or had a family member killed by a gun, including by suicide (19%). One in six say they personally witnessed someone being shot.

The American obsession with guns is literally killing us.

Sadly, guns are still causing the deaths of Native Americans and the trend is worsening. Giffords reported in October 2022, that from “2000 to 2020, the total number of gun deaths among American Indian/Alaska Native (AI/AN) people more than doubled, and from 2019 to 2020 alone, gun deaths in this group rose 34 percent.”

To be clear, I am not a proponent of taking away all guns in American society. Clearly, Native Americans have been hunters since before European contact and have used guns to hunt since they were introduced to our ancestors. However, I am a proponent of establishing gun control with strong background checks so that mentally unstable people and criminals cannot own guns.

Further, I believe Americans need to push back hard on the politics of hate that causes unfounded fear. That was the case of the Kansas City elderly man who shot an innocent teen who was only trying to pick up his twin brothers.

As a Native American man, I can hope that America gets over its obsession with guns.

Senators Push Universities, Museums to “Expeditiously Return” Native Ancestors

Repatriation
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Sens. Lisa Murkowski (left) and Brian Schatz (right) 

at an Indian Affairs Committee oversight hearing on 

NAGPRA on Feb. 2, 2022. 

(Photo: Senate Committee on Indian Affairs). 

 BY BRIAN EDWARDS APRIL 21, 2023

WASHINGTON – A bipartisan group of 13 U.S. Senators is asking universities and museums with large collections of Native American human remains why they’ve failed to repatriate them to tribes—more than 30 years after a federal law was passed that compelled them to do so.

In letters sent to the University of California-Berkeley, Harvard University, Illinois State Museum, Indiana University, and the Ohio History Connection, the senate group—led by Sens. Brian Schatz (D-HI) and Lisa Murkwoski (R-AK) of the Senate Committee on Indian Affairs—urged the institutions to comply with the federal Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act (NAGPRA) and “expeditiously return” cultural items and ancestral remains.

Signed into law in 1990, NAGPRA directs federal agencies and museums with possession or control over holdings or collections of Native American human remains and funerary objects to inventory them, identify their geographic and cultural affiliation, and notify the affected Indian tribes or Native Hawaiian organization.

The five institutions that received the letters possess some of the largest collections of Native American human remains, according to federal records. Many were identified in recent media reports, including Native News Online reporting and a ProPublica and NBC News investigation that highlights how prestigious universities and museums have delayed repatriation requests and failed the mandate set by NAGPRA.

“Delayed repatriation is delayed justice for Native peoples,” the senators said in letters to the five institutions. “For too long, Native ancestral remains and cultural items have been unconscionably denied their journey home by institutions, desecrated by scientific study, publicly displayed as specimens, left to collect dust on a shelf, or simply thrown in a box and forgotten in a museum storeroom.”

In the letters, the senators requested that the universities and museums provide an update over the next 60 days on their current process and pace of repatriation, as well as information about their policies and practices pursuant to NAGPRA.

The letters were also signed by Senators Catherine Cortez Masto (D-NV), Martin Heinrich (D-NM), Mazie Hirono (D-HI), Ben Ray Luján (D-NM), Patty Murray (D-WA), Alex Padilla (D-CA), Kyrsten Sinema (I-AZ), Tina Smith (D-MN), Dan Sullivan (R-AK), Jon Tester (D-MT), and Elizabeth Warren (D-MA).

The letters note positive impacts that NAGPRA has created, but also mentions “troubling testimony” about the failure of institutions to complete repatrations in a timely manner.

“While NAGPRA has had positive and far-reaching impacts, such as improved relationships between museums, institutions, federal agencies, and Native peoples, and significant, successful repatriation of many cultural items and ancestral remains, Congress continues to receive troubling testimony detailing ongoing issues related to the timely completion of NAGPRA repatriations,” the senators write.

National Congress of American Indians President Fawn Sharp issued a statement commending the Senators' bipartisan efforts. "For centuries, our cultural items, our sacred items, and our ancestors have been taken from us and kept from us, but today's efforts acknowledge what we have long said: there is no acceptable reason to continue this practice and no acceptable reason for delays—now is the time to right this historic and ongoing wrong," Sharp said.

The Largest Global Gathering of Indigenous Leaders at the UN. Here’s what you need to know.

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Grist / Getty ImagesBY JOSEPH LEE,

 GRIST APRIL 17, 2023
This story is published as part of the Global Indigenous Affairs Desk, an Indigenous-led collaboration between Grist, High Country News, ICT, Mongabay, and Native News Online.

Indigenous peoples have long argued that they have done little to contribute to climate change but that they’re the most affected and are expected to make steep sacrifices to fix it. Funding for green energy projects continues to skyrocket despite clear and growing threats to Indigenous peoples’ lands and rights. Indigenous leaders persistently express concern over global conservation programs that remove communities from their traditional territories, while record numbers of environmental, Indigenous, and land defenders are killed.

That context is sure to inform conversations at this year’s United Nations Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues, or UNPFII, which opens its 22nd session today in New York with a key thematic focus: Indigenous peoples, human health, planetary and territorial health, and climate change. An advisory agency with the United Nations since 2000, UNPFII is one of only three U.N. bodies that deal specifically with Indigenous issues, with a major focus on advocating for the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, or UNDRIP, a nonbinding resolution that affirms international Indigenous rights but is irregularly followed or applied by nations, and sometimes even by U.N. agencies. UNPFII offers Indigenous peoples, leaders, organizations, and allies an opportunity to raise specific issues to the agency in the hope of winding those issues through the international system to world leaders and policy makers.

“We are going to the U.N. because in our countries they are not hearing us,” said Majo Andrade Cerda, Kichwa member of the Global Indigenous Youth Caucus from Ecuador. “It’s a way for us to say we are still alive, because we don’t know when the states and the extractive industries are going to kill us. We are threatened every day.”

With COVID-19 restrictions continuing to loosen around the world, the forum will be conducted completely in person for the first time in four years at the United Nations’ headquarters in New York. And while travel costs can be immense for many Indigenous leaders, forum members say that in-person is generally more productive as many communities have struggled with poor internet connections. It also offers a rare chance for collaboration and networking among Indigenous peoples around the world. More than 2,000 participants have registered to attend this year.

According to forum members, past virtual and hybrid sessions have seen a lower number of attendees. Cerda hopes that more women and youth will be here this year, noting that their voices are critical and often overlooked. “Women are the holders of the ancestral knowledge,” she said. “We want to live in our communities, in our lands, for the rest of our lives and for the future generations.”

One key report on Indigenous determinants of health will be discussed this session. Based on a study conducted by forum members in 2022, it highlights factors that influence Indigenous health outcomes, including food systems, intergenerational trauma, access to traditional foods and plants, and sovereign rights. The authors recommend the U.N. and member states adopt a raft of strategies and programs, including incorporating Indigenous traditions in health assessment, offering medical services in Indigenous languages, and launching national awareness campaigns to combat misdiagnoses of Indigenous health issues. How to get those recommendations adopted by world leaders will be the biggest question. Attendees are expected to address specific health concerns from their communities, which will inform the recommendations that the forum ultimately makes to U.N. agencies and member states.

“Our goal with this report was to provide a structure and a framework to not only define what Indigenous determinants of health are, but to also provide a guide for U.N. agencies and stakeholders, as well as member states and countries, on how you approach health with Indigenous people,” said Geoffrey Roth, a Standing Rock Sioux descendent, one of the report’s authors, and an elected member of the permanent forum.

Last year in its final report, UNPFII called on member states and U.N. agencies to create and implement mechanisms that would better protect Indigenous peoples’ rights and territories, specifically calling out the United States and Canada to create action plans to actually implement the UNDRIP within their borders. Both countries have signed on as supporters of the declaration, but have not braided its recommendations into law and regularly violate the declaration’s principles. For example, in the U.S. a major copper mine is on track to destroy Oak Flat, a sacred area to the Apache, with the backing of the Biden administration. For years, it has faced resistance from tribal nations and Apache Stronghold, a coalition of Indigenous leaders, activists, and allies. Last month, President Biden approved ConocoPhillips’s Willow project in Alaska, an oil-drilling project, despite some local Indigenous communities’ opposition and climate concerns. In Canada, Wet’suwet’en Hereditary Chiefs have been protesting the Coastal GasLink pipeline on their lands for years, facing violent reprisals and arrests.

In the previous session, forum members and Indigenous leaders also highlighted the importance of Free, Prior, and Informed Consent — an international human rights standard that gives Indigenous communities control over development projects that impact them. Last year, Sámi leaders flagged a major wind-energy project in their traditional reindeer-herding territories that was established illegally and without their consent. That project sparked protests in Norway last month, culminating in the shutdown of multiple ministries by Sámi and environmental activists for nearly a week. Norwegian representatives have apologized for violating the Sámi’s human rights, but the windmills are still operational.

Since the last session, Indigenous representatives say their advocacy sparked some progress. Agencies within the U.N., like the World Health Organization, will host side events on Indigenous women and mental health, issues raised at the Forum last year. However, more concrete recommendations, including calling on the United States to grant clemency to Indigenous political prisoner Leonard Peltier, have gone unheeded. “We do not have more power to really push them to come and to do the things in the right way,” Hindou Oumarou Ibrahim, an Indigenous Mbororo forum member from Chad, said. “It is their responsibility. It is their mandate to work with the Indigenous peoples.”

This year’s UNPFII also marks the anniversary of a 100-year fight waged by Indigenous leaders for influence at the international level. In 1923, Chief Deskaheh of the Iroquois League went to the League of Nations in Geneva to advocate for Indigenous sovereignty but was turned away. In 1925, Maori leader T.W. Ratana was also blocked from the League of Nations, where he hoped to protest the breaking of a treaty that affirmed Maori control over their lands in New Zealand.

Establishing UNPFII has been an important victory, but the forum still has no enforcement power over other U.N. bodies and little sway with member states. This year may see another shift in the forum, however. This session, the president of the U.N. General Assembly, H.E. Csaba Kőrösi, will hold a hearing on “enhanced participation” — a move that could put UNPFII and Indigenous nations on the same level as member states and allow participation in major meetings, like the General Assembly. Currently, that ability does not exist for forum members and other Indigenous leaders without a specific invitation from member states to major meetings, agencies, or hearings. “I wish that we could move forward on that conversation and find a meaningful way for tribal nations to be respected and have a voice within the U.N. system,” Roth said.

R. Múkaro Agüeibaná Borrero, member of the Guainía Taíno Tribe and president of the United Confederation of Taíno People, who has attended every session of the permanent forum since it began in 2000, acknowledges that progress at the forum can seem slow, but believes that their efforts pay off in the long term. “We know that the struggle is long, but as Indigenous peoples we know we have to be in that struggle for the long haul,” Borrero said.

Grist is a nonprofit, independent media organization dedicated to telling stories of climate solutions and a just future. Learn more at Grist.org.

University of Minnesota Commited Genocide Against Native Peoples, New Report Shows

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(photo:University of Minnesota Instagram)

BY NATIVE NEWS ONLINE STAFF APRIL 11, 2023

For seven generations, the University of Minnesota has profited off of Indigenous land and perpetrated genocide against its original inhabitants, according to a landmark report published today by a Native-led research group.

Now, the state’s 11 federally recognized tribes are asking the university for land back, representation among administrators and the student body, and a commitment to “repatriations in perpetuity.”

The research was spurred by the March 2020 High Country News publication of an investigation into the land grab universities across the United States that continue profiting from Native land.

But the Dakota land cessions of 1851, in which four bands relinquished nearly all Dakota territory in Mni Sota Makoce (what is now called Minnesota) at the threat of violence, provided land to more universities than any other cession, HCN reported.

The University of Minnesota was founded in 1851 but closed in 1857 because of financial hardship. It wasn’t until President Abraham Lincoln signed the Morrill Act of 1862 that the university was able to reopen in 1867, through the seed money generated from close to 100,000 acres of land taken from the 11 Minnesota tribes. The Act allowed states to establish public college financed by the development or sale of association federal land grants. More than 10 million acres of the grants were expropriated from tribal lands.

“Nearly 830,000 acres from this treaty — an area almost three times the size of Los Angeles — would help fund the endowment of 35 land-grant universities,” reporters Tristan Ahtone and Robert Lee wrote. “Mni Sota Makoce furnished one out of every 13 acres redistributed under the Morrill Act.”

As a result of the HCN reporting, the Minnesota Indian Affairs Council in 2020 called for a specific accounting of Mni Sóta Maḳoce’s land grab. They created the TRUTH Project—Towards Recognition and University-Tribal Healing, funded by a grant from the Mellon Foundation— to research university-tribal relations from an Indigenous perspective.

Local tribal members combed through academic literature, university records, legislative records, and Indigenous histories to complete their 215-page report on how the University of Minnesota has and continues to undermine tribal sovereignty.

“The University of Minnesota’s founding as a land grant/grab institution in 1851—and then again in 1867— extracted vast amounts of wealth from Tribal Nations,” The TRUTH Project Core Research Team said in a statement. “The institution must account for the perpetual harms that accompany that land expropriation. The U of M must also enact policies that prioritize and maximize the benefits to Indigenous peoples.”

The report calls on the University of Minnesota leadership to work towards healing through reparations, truth-telling, policy change, and transformative justice projects.

“In light of these findings, the institution must formally recognize the harm and genocide committed against Native American peoples, including the theft of language, culture, community, and land that has led to the depressed social determinants of well-being among Indigenous peoples, including education, healthcare, and housing,” the report reads.

Robert Larsen, President of the Minnesota Indian Affairs Council and President of the Lower Sioux Indian Community, said in a statement that the report just scratches the surface.

“I hope people realize these stories are meant to heal, not hurt anyone, and to help more people understand the true history of how we have gotten to the point we are today,” Larsen said. “The work needs to continue. Only when we know better can we do better for our present and future together.”

1,000-year-old Indigenous Canoe Excavated from North Carolina Lake



(Photo: North Carolina Office of State Archaeology)

BY DARREN THOMPSON APRIL 18, 2023

LAKE WACCAMAW, N.C. — The Waccamaw Siouan Indian Tribe helped archaeologists excavate a 28-foot canoe out of Lake Waccamaw on April 12 that is believed to be at least 1,000 years old. Local reports state that the canoe was found while three teenagers were swimming in the lake during the summer of 2021.

The Waccamaw Siouan Indian Tribe of North Carolina is one of eight state-recognized American Indian tribes in North Carolina. They call themselves “People of the falling star” because of their history near Lake Waccamaw. Their oral history tells that the lake was created long ago when a meteor crashed into the earth, and nearby waterways flowed into the crater, causing a unique blue-green appearance, unlike other lakes in the area.

Waccamaw Siouan Chief Michael Jacobs told Fox News that the canoe supports the tribe’s oral history that they have been there for thousands of years.

“For years and years, we’ve always been questioned about our history and where we come from and who we are,” Jacobs said at the excavation. “Now, we have physical history to back it up.”

Eli Hill, one of the teenagers who found the canoe while swimming, said he initially thought it was a log, but when he tried to pick it up, he couldn’t.

Hill’s family contacted the North Carolina Office of State Archaeology, which sent a team to examine the canoe and move it under a dock until it could be safely excavated.

According to reports, dozens of tribal citizens of the Waccamaw Siouan Indian Tribe observed the canoe excavation, along with community members and other news media. The canoe was immediately placed in a chamber, covered and dried with towels and wrapped in plastic to prevent further deterioration. The canoe will be treated with chemicals in a lab to be preserved for future observation.

The canoe will be displayed during an open house at the Queen Anne’s Revenge Conservation Laboratory in Greenville, N.C., on April 22.

Native News Online previously reported on canoe excavations. Last year, the Ho-Chunk Nation of Wisconsin pulled a second canoe out of Lake Mendota that is at least 1,000 years old.

Cherokee Nation Creates Historic Impact and Significant Growth in Oklahoma

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Cherokee Nation Principal Chief Chuck Hoskin Jr. announces the tribe's more than $3 billion economic impact on the state of Oklahoma. (Photo/Cherokee Nation)

BY CHUCK HOSKIN JR 

 

APRIL 23, 2023

Guest Opinion. In the modern economy, competition for jobs and investment is fierce. Large, globalized companies come and go in search of a better deal. Especially in rural and small-town America, whole regions of our country have been left behind.

In this economic environment, having a partner deeply committed to a specific place is priceless. For northeast Oklahoma and the entire state, Cherokee Nation is that partner.

The Cherokee Nation arrived here almost 185 years ago, decades before Oklahoma was a state, and made this our forever home. From the beginning, we have invested in long-term growth. We do not outsource jobs or threaten to move our headquarters out of state. We are long-term partners with Oklahoma, a stabilizing force in unstable times.

The newly updated Cherokee Nation Economic Impact Report shows how powerful that partnership has become. This detailed study by the Economic Research and Policy Institute at Oklahoma City University shows Cherokee Nation and its businesses have a more than $3 billion annual impact on the Oklahoma economy. The report finds our businesses and government activities are supporting nearly 19,000 jobs.

As a sovereign government with a nation-to-nation relationship with the United States, we also received billions in additional COVID-19 relief funding during the pandemic emergency. Through strategic management of these funds, the Cherokee Nation was able to ensure employees never missed a paycheck, provide direct assistance to citizens, and support many community organizations. The net effect was an added $2 billion economic impact on Oklahoma, which helped communities get through one of the most difficult and disruptive economic crises in a generation.

Cherokee Nation Principal Chief Chuck Hoskin, Jr.

The growth and prosperity of Cherokee Nation are an example of history repeating itself. We have seen our hard-earned wealth destroyed and our government and people suppressed, but we have rebuilt time and again. History shows that when the Cherokee people are allowed to govern themselves, great things happen.

As the largest federally recognized tribe in the country, Cherokee Nation is committed to growing the economy, lifting our citizens and helping our friends and neighbors. Cherokee leaders in business and government have forged numerous partnerships to bring quality jobs, expanded services, better infrastructure and health care access to our 7,000-square-mile reservation.

We remain the market leader in entertainment and hospitality, and we have grown our federal contracting and other business ventures for a diverse, sustainable economic portfolio. We proudly reinvest our profits in services and facilities that make Oklahoma a great place to live and raise a family, for both Cherokees and non-Cherokees.

We also know we are strongest when all Cherokees have opportunities to bring their gifts and ideas forward. That’s why we recently partnered with The University of Tulsa and StitchCrew on a Native American Women Entrepreneurship Accelerator program offered at TU this coming fall. Deputy Chief Bryan Warner and I are proud to work with such great partners to help tap into the entrepreneurial spirit that we know is there. I believe this program, a first of its kind in this region, will be a model for the future. The wisdom and bravery of Cherokee women have brought us through some of the darkest periods of our history, and they will power our brightest days ahead, too.

We look forward to that future, blessed by the enduring strength of our ancestors and the talents of our rising young people. Together, we lift up Cherokee Nation, our citizens and our fellow Oklahomans. Let’s move forward as partners to even greater prosperity.

Chuck Hoskin, Jr. is the principal chief of the Cherokee Nation.

FBI leak investigators home in on members of private Discord server

By SHANE HARRIS, SAMUEL OAKFORD, DEVLIN BARRETT
THE WASHINGTON POST • April 22, 2023



As part of its investigation, the FBI has spoken to friends of Teixeira who hung out with him in the Discord server, known as Thug Shaker Central, according to people familiar with the matter. The questions included how members of the server first came to know Teixeira, what video games they played together and whether any of the members were foreign nationals, these people said, speaking on condition of anonymity to discuss interactions with law enforcement officials. (FBI/Facebook)

The FBI has been interviewing members of a private Discord server where a 21-year-old National Guardsman is alleged to have shared classified documents, an indication that law enforcement officials are trying to understand how potentially dozens of people may have had access to highly sensitive information before it circulated on the internet and was obtained by journalists.

Jack Teixeira was arrested last week and charged with illegally retaining and transmitting classified information on a server that he administered. He faces up to 15 years in prison. Teixeira has not yet entered a plea.

As part of its investigation, the FBI has spoken to friends of Teixeira who hung out with him in the Discord server, known as Thug Shaker Central, according to people familiar with the matter. The questions included how members of the server first came to know Teixeira, what video games they played together and whether any of the members were foreign nationals, these people said, speaking on condition of anonymity to discuss interactions with law enforcement officials.

Members of the private Discord group previously told The Washington Post that foreign citizens, including from Russia and Ukraine, as well as Europe, Asia and South America, were among the roughly two dozen people who congregated on the server. The Post has not confirmed the presence of users from these locations.

Discord, which is a popular platform among online gamers, has said it is cooperating with the FBI's investigation.

For the past several years, U.S. intelligence officials have worried that gaming platforms like Discord created an opportunity for foreign governments to access U.S. secrets, including by encouraging people with access to classified information to share it online.

It was not clear whether the FBI had determined that foreign nationals were in Teixeira's server or whether any of them had connections to or worked for foreign governments. In at least one instance, the FBI has seized the electronic devices of a former member of the server, according to people familiar with the matter.

The FBI is responsible for collecting evidence of Teixeira's alleged crime. But it is also seeking to assess the damage from the "spillage" of classified information. Former members of the server told The Post that Teixeira shared hundreds of classified documents, including transcriptions he typed out and photographs of documents that covered subjects ranging from battlefield updates on the war in Ukraine to insights into foreign countries and officials that the U.S. intelligence community is monitoring.

Two former members said additional accounts were part of the server, describing them as apparently inactive or "bots" that can be set up by Discord users to do things like play music.

One former member of the server told law enforcement officials that Teixeira began sharing classified documents in December. But two others told The Post that he provided documents earlier than that, beginning around last summer.

The classified documents appeared to be restricted to members of the server during that time. Former members said there was an unspoken rule not to share them beyond the small circle.

But unbeknown to the group, on Feb. 28, a teenage member began posting several dozen photographs showing classified documents on another Discord server affiliated with the YouTuber "wow_mao." Some of the documents offered detailed assessments of Ukraine's defense capabilities and showed how far U.S. intelligence has tapped into Russia's military command.

On March 4, 10 documents appeared on "Minecraft Earth Map," a Discord server focused on the popular video game. A user operating the account that posted the smaller tranche of images told The Post they obtained them on wow_mao.

Secret and top-secret documents were now available to thousands of Discord users, but the leak wouldn't come to the attention of U.S. authorities for another month.

The Justice Department is unlikely to charge members of the server for viewing or sharing the classified information, based on past cases. Historically, the government has almost always charged only individuals with security clearances, which legally obligate them not to share classified information with people who aren't authorized to see it.

A notable exception to that rule is WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, whom the Justice Department has charged with violating the Espionage Act for allegedly working with former Army intelligence analyst Chelsea Manning to obtain and disseminate secret documents.

Assange's alleged actions are similar to reporting work at many traditional news organizations. But the Justice Department has sought to distinguish his work from that of a reporter, arguing that Assange is not a journalist and that he engaged in "explicit solicitation of classified information," as John Demers, then a senior department official, said at the time of Assange's charging in 2019.

Members of the Discord server said Teixeira shared the information with the group on his own, part of his desire to keep his online tribe informed about world events.

He wanted to "keep us in the loop," a former member said, and provided access to insider knowledge that the members understood was kept from most people.

It appeared Teixeira understood he was not authorized to share the information with others.

"He's a smart person," the former member said. "He knew what he was doing when he posted these documents, of course. These weren't accidental leaks of any kind."

He added that Teixeira also didn't seem motivated by a desire to inform the broader public about government wrongdoing, as earlier leakers have claimed when explaining their actions.

"I would definitely not call him a whistleblower. I would not call [Teixeira] a whistleblower in the slightest," the former member said.

UNETHICAL, IMMORAL, NOT ILLEGAL

As Fears of Banking Crisis Surged, Members of Congress Sold Bank Shares

The flurry of transactions highlighted how members of Congress continue to buy and sell stocks in industries that intersect with their official duties.

An account belonging to Representative Jared Moskowitz’s children sold shares of Seacoast Banking Corporation as fears of a banking crisis rattled investors.

Credit...Cliff Owen/Associated Press

By Kate Kelly
April 19, 2023

WASHINGTON — On March 10, as fears were swirling over the health of the nation’s banks, an investment account belonging to the children of Representative Jared Moskowitz, Democrat of Florida, sold shares of Seacoast Banking Corporation worth $65,000 to $150,000.

Two days later, with the government working to control the crisis, Mr. Moskowitz said in a television interview that he had attended a bipartisan congressional briefing on the tumult. And on March 13, as investors fretted over the failure of Silicon Valley Bank and two other, smaller banks, Seacoast Banking shares fell nearly 20 percent.

A spokesman for Mr. Moskowitz said in an email that the Seacoast share sales had been suggested by the congressman’s financial adviser as a means to diversify his young children’s holdings. Mr. Moskowitz said the congressional briefing on the bank crisis had taken place just before the television interview and after the shares were sold.

But the transaction was just one example of how members of Congress continue to buy and sell stocks and other financial assets in industries that intersect with their official duties.

At least eight members of Congress or their close relatives sold shares of bank stocks in March, according to an analysis by Capitol Trades, a project of the data firm 2iQ — a number that could rise in the coming days, as lawmakers make additional disclosures of trades made last month.

Though broadly legal, stock trading by members of Congress has become a flashpoint because lawmakers are sometimes privy to closely held information about the companies and industries they oversee.

A New York Times investigation last year showed that during a three-year period, nearly a fifth of federal lawmakers or their immediate family members had bought or sold stocks or other securities that could have been affected by their legislative work.


Efforts to pass legislation to place limits on trading by members of Congress or to ban it have stalled in recent years. On Capitol Hill on Tuesday, Senator Jeff Merkley, Democrat of Oregon, and Senator Sherrod Brown, Democrat of Ohio, announced a new bill intended to eliminate the practice that has 19 co-sponsors in the Senate.

A House version of the bill is co-sponsored by Representative Michael Cloud, Republican of Texas, and Representative Raja Krishnamoorthi, Democrat of Illinois.

“As the Silicon Valley Bank was closed, even during that period, there were reports that members of Congress were trading bank stocks,” Mr. Brown said. “I mean, imagine that — that members of Congress, we have more inside information,” he said, adding, “members of Congress are able, because of our jobs, to know more about the economy.”

Representative Dan Goldman, a New York Democrat, sold shares of First Republic Bank, the large depositor that was rapidly losing both cash and clients, on March 15, the day before it received an industry bailout of $30 million.

The wife and children of Representative Ro Khanna, Democrat of California, sold First Republic shares that same day. Representative John Curtis, Republican of Utah, sold shares in First Republic from a joint account with his spouse on March 16, the day the industry bailout occurred.

By that time, First Republic shares had already fallen nearly 80 percent from a February peak. The timing of the sales by those three lawmakers or their relatives meant that the sellers averted an additional price swoon that was still to come. First Republic stock is now down nearly 90 percent since the beginning of this year.

A spokesman for Mr. Goldman has said that his portfolio is managed by a third party without his knowledge and that he is setting up a blind trust to avoid any appearance of a conflict of interest. Mr. Khanna has said that his filings relate to trades made by a diversified trust belonging to his wife and young children and that he has no involvement in it. Spokesmen for Mr. Curtis did not respond to requests for comment.

Some members were also buying bank shares during the volatility. On March 17, Representative Nicole Malliotakis, Republican of New York, bought shares of New York Community Bancorp after private discussions with New York State bank regulators. Her transaction was first reported by The Wall Street Journal.

Two days later, New York Community Bancorp bought assets belonging to the failed Signature Bank — a deal that prompted its biggest share rally ever. Around that same time, other lawmakers, including Senator Gary Peters, Democrat of Michigan, and family members of Mr. Khanna, bought shares in larger U.S. banks, like Truist Financial. Mr. Goldman, among other transactions, made a series of purchases of shares in foreign banks, like Lloyds Banking Group and Mizuho Financial Group.

A spokeswoman for Ms. Malliotakis said that her financial adviser had recommended the purchase and that it amounted to less than $5,000 in value. A spokesman for Mr. Peters did not respond to questions about the transaction.

Kate Kelly covers money, influence, and policy as a correspondent in the Washington bureau of the Times. Before that, she spent twenty years covering Wall Street deals, key players and their intersection with politics. She is the author of three books, including "The Education of Brett Kavanaugh." More about Kate Kelly

A version of this article appears in print on April 20, 2023, Section A, Page 17 of the New York edition with the headline: As Lawmakers Fretted Over Banking Turmoil, They Also Shed Shares.