One professor criticized the university, saying the policy abandons its educational mission
The California State University system has rolled out a new policy that prohibits professors from using Native American “cultural items” in class – unless they obtain permission from the tribe.
The policy, announced last week, drew criticism from a California anthropologist who described it as an “attack” on the preservation of knowledge. However, a campus free speech attorney praised CSU for dropping a section of the policy that restricted free speech.
The 23-campus system has been working on the revised policy for several years in connection to the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act, or NAGPRA, and California’s state version. The laws require government and public entities to restore human remains and “cultural items” to their direct descendants.
The policy, published July 1, outlines the method by which universities must identify and repatriate these items to Native American tribes.
“All CSU campuses must implement processes that ensure timely, lawful repatriation of Human Remains and Cultural Items, including respectful treatment and handling while in CSU custody,” the policy states.
It also requires campuses to “respect Native American traditional knowledge and cultural protocols, ensuring that no decisions are made without meaningful Tribal consultation.”
Originally slated to be finalized July 1, the policy was instead adopted as an interim “while we seek further tribal consultation as requested by the Native American Heritage Commission,” CSU spokesperson Amy Bentley-Smith told The Fix in an email Thursday.
“The CSU strongly believes that meaningful engagement with Tribal Nations not only respects their sovereignty and voice in decisions that impact their communities, ancestors and cultural heritage but also enriches academic research and teaching by grounding it in respect, accuracy, and collaboration,” Bentley-Smith said.
The policy resulted, in part, from a 2022 state audit that found CSU campuses still had nearly 700,000 items in their collections that should be “repatriated” to Native American tribes. It also found a wide-spread lack of compliance with the federal law among more than half of its campuses.
‘Repatriation’ policies raise concerns among some scholars
California anthropologist Elizabeth Weiss has been a vocal opponent of recent “repatriation” efforts.
Weiss (pictured) told The Fix that CSU is abandoning its educational mission by adopting the policy.
“Prohibition of research is mentioned multiple times throughout the policy. And, even acquiring information through measuring remains, taking photos, or drawing images is prohibited,” she said.
“How can the CSU still be considered a university when it literally prevents the acquisition and preservation of information,” Weiss told The Fix in an interview Thursday.
For example, the policy prohibits professors from using “any Native American Human Remains or Cultural Items for the purposes of teaching or research” unless they first obtain permission from the tribe.
If it’s not clear what the tribe of origin is, the artifact “must not be used for teaching or research.”
Some colleges have taken this prohibition a step further.
Recently, the Los Rios Community College District received several warning letters from the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression for banning professors from even showing “images or replicas” of Native American artifacts.
“FIRE has now written to the district three times, calling for an end to this speech-stifling policy,” FIRE attorney Ross Marchand told The Fix in an email Thursday.
However, the district has insisted on keeping the ban in place until its tribal partners agree to change it, Marchand said.
The good news is that CSU removed a similar ban from its new policy, he told The Fix. The ban would have “overstepped both the First Amendment and NAGPRA itself, which doesn’t restrict such use,” Marchand said.
“FIRE had submitted comments criticizing the previous version of CSU’s policy, and evidently, the university system listened to us,” he said.
CSU will require classroom searches for Native American items
Along with the restrictions on teaching, the new policy requires every campus to conduct a thorough search of classrooms, labs, storage areas, and other spaces for “items of Native American origin” that potentially fall under the repatriation laws.
The policy does allow universities to retain the items “in-trust” if the tribe or individual descendant requests it.
But Weiss expressed concerns that retired professors are mentioned in the policy as well as current faculty and staff.
“Will they be sending campus police to obtain books, data, photos, x-rays, and more from the homes of retired faculty,” she asked, adding: “Where will this end? One thing is certain: the direction they are going in will bury science and dig up fear!”
Another cause for concern, Weiss said, is that every university will be required to set up a website where students can report “alleged violations.”
A professor emeritus at San Jose State University, Weiss said this already has happened to her. Students reported her for allegedly passing around Native American human remains in class, but she said the materials were actually casts.
Weiss is not alone. In 2023, a ProPublica report called out University of California Berkeley Professor Tim White, a renowned anthropologist, for doing research on a collection of human bones that possibly could be Native American.
According to the report, White said “he’s been villainized for strictly adhering to the federal law” and “the collection did not need to be reported under NAGPRA because there is no way to determine the origin of the bones.”
He did not return an email from The Fix asking about the new policy.
Weiss predicted there will be more unfair reporting in the future. As to motive, she said some students may just be unaware, but others could use the reporting tool to “take revenge” on a professor “for a poor grade” or “unwoke views.”
Field researchers will be required to obtain permission from tribes
Another part of the policy restricts field research.
It prohibits field schools “on any site identified as a sacred or burial site or place of cultural significance as determined by a California Indian Tribe.”
Additionally, if a university wants to set up any type of field school in the state, it must get approval from California Indian Tribes with “knowledge of Tribal cultural resources” in the location. Those tribes “may reject or approve a campus’s proposed field school.”
Weiss said field school experience is vital to archeology, and these new restrictions will hurt the field. She said poorer students will especially be affected, because only wealthier students will be able to pay to go abroad to do fieldwork.
“But, most problematic, the new policy requires that during field schools: ‘Tribal perspectives, concerns, and cultural protocols are respected and incorporated into the planning and execution of such activities,'” she said.
“At UC Berkeley this has previously meant excluding menstruating students from engaging in field work, eating with their classmates and professors, and being shunned! This sort of sex discrimination is rampant in tribes and, yet, the ‘progressive’ academics support this tribal sexism,” she said.
Weiss also raised religious freedom concerns, questioning whether tribes could require students and scholars to participate in religious rituals in order to do field research.
CSU included tribal leaders in the crafting of its policy.
One tribe, the San Manuel Band of Mission Indians, has called for “increasing accountability” for the university’s repatriation efforts.
Following the passage of a 2023 bill amending the California NAGPRA law, the tribe stated in a news release that it signaled “progress being made in reuniting Native families who have waited generations for the return of family history.”
“Tribes expect to work hand-in-hand with agencies and ensure priority is placed on tribal consultation so repatriation is done right once and for all,” it stated.
A spokesperson for the tribe did not respond to The Fix asking about the new policy and concerns raised by scholars like Weiss.
Anthropologist on why she speaks out
Weiss is one of the few scholars who speaks out openly against these policies.
Another who spoke with The Fix in April did so anonymously, fearing retribution from their employer.
“We are very concerned with how that not only constrains the quality of the education my students are getting but also curtails my discipline expertise and academic freedom to select the most appropriate teaching materials to teach my class,” the professor said of the Los Rios college’s policy.
Asked about this, Weiss said some scholars may be afraid to speak out and lose their jobs. But she believes a growing number in the field are embracing “identity politics.”
These “woke warriors” are “ruining the reputation of past archaeologists, and promoting a false narrative that tribal elders are all-knowing and should not be questioned,” she said.
“Native Americans are — in the woke academics’ minds — the victims of colonialism,” she told The Fix. “In these archaeologists’ views there are no objective truths to be discovered by reconstructing the past; there are only subjective perspectives, and those of the victim class need to be listened to.”
MORE: Professors can’t show images of Native American ‘cultural items’ in class
IMAGE CAPTION AND CREDIT: A Native American Indian female dress from the Lakota culture is on display at a museum; Tolobalaguer/Shutterstock, Elizabeth Weiss