Using Tribal Critical Race Theory (TribalCrit) as a framework, this case addresses the practice of universities offering land acknowledgments, which has faced scrutiny for presenting Indigenous peoples as absent, implying they willingly sacrificed territory, and failing to offer tangible steps for restitution. Readers follow Dr. Abigail Sims, a Ramsey State University faculty member in the Department of American Indian Studies, who aims to address these issues while experiencing backlash. Students are encouraged to reflect on leadership tactics when faced with funding and public relations challenges, land acknowledgments that promote truth-telling and decolonization, and restitution to Indigenous peoples.
AmboT.BeardallT. R. (2023). Performance or progress? The physical and rhetorical removal of Indigenous peoples in settler land acknowledgments at land-grab universities. American Educational Research Journal, 60(1), 103–140. https://doi.org/10.3102/00028312221141981
BrayboyB. M. J. (2013). Tribal Critical Race Theory: An origin story and future directions. In LynnM.DixsonA. D. (Eds.), Handbook of critical race theory in education (pp. 88–100). Taylor & Francis.
4.
CaseM. (2018). The relentless business of treaties: How Indigenous land became U.S. property. Minnesota Historical Society Press.
5.
CoulthardG. S. (2014). Red skin, white masks: Rejecting the colonial politics of recognition. University of Minnesota Press.
DuranE.DuranB.Yellow Horse Brave HeartM.Yellow Horse-DavisS. (1998). Healing the American Indian soul wound. In DanieliY. (Ed.), International handbook of multigenerational legacies of trauma (pp. 341–354). Springer. https://doi-org.ezproxy.mnsu.edu/10.1007/978-1-4757-5567-1
8.
LajimodiereD. K. (2019). Stringing rosaries: The history, the unforgivable, and the healing of Northern Plains American Indian boarding school survivors. North Dakota State University Press.
9.
LambertL. (2014). Research for Indigenous survival: Indigenous research methodologies in the behavioral sciences. Salish Kootenai College Press.
NashM. A. (2019). Entangled pasts: Land-grant colleges and American Indian dispossession. History of Education Quarterly, 59(4), 437–467. https://doi.org/doi:10.1017/heq.2019.31
NicholsR. (2020). Theft is property!: Dispossession and critical theory. Duke University Press.
18.
O’BrienJ. M. (2010). Firsting and lasting: Writing Indians out of existence in New England. University of Minnesota Press.
19.
ReanoD. (2020). Using Indigenous research frameworks in the multiple contexts of research, teaching, mentoring, and leading. The Qualitative Report, 25(11), 3902–3926. https://doi.org/10.46743/2160-3715/2020.4317
SimpsonL. B. (2011). Dancing on our turtle’s back: Stories of Nishnaabeg re-creation, resurgence, and a new emergence. Arbeiter Ring.
22.
SimpsonL. B. (2017). As we have always done: Indigenous freedom through radical resistance. University of Minnesota Press.
23.
TeminD. M.DahlA. (2017). Narrating historical injustice: Political responsibility and the politics of memory. Political Research Quarterly, 70(4), 905–917. https://doi.org/10.1177/1065912917718636
