While a policy revision stalls, one professor says the moratorium is ‘like a sledgehammer to our collections’
The Los Rios Community College District continues to enforce a moratorium on “images and reproductions of Native American human remains and cultural items” after a new policy to narrow the ban was stalled, waiting for Native American tribal partners’ approval.
The moratorium, which went into effect in October 2023, prohibits professors from teaching and researching using Native American cultural items, human remains and images or reproductions of these items or remains, according to the policy documents reviewed by The College Fix.
The ban has received pushback from scholars both in and outside the district, with one telling The Fix it is “like a sledgehammer to our collections.”
Despite multiple letters calling out the policy for violating the First Amendment from the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression, the moratorium continues. In March, FIRE Program Counsel Ross Marchand wrote a third letter to the district after a policy revision stalled.
The district, which oversees four California community colleges, did not respond to multiple emails and phone calls from The College Fix within the past two weeks asking for clarification and reasoning for the policy.
An explanation can be found on the district website, though.
It states the moratorium was implemented at the request of and out of respect for the district’s tribal partners. It is also due to the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act, a 1990 federal law. California has its own version, called CalNAGPRA, which passed in 2001.
Both laws require colleges receiving federal or state funding to work with Native American tribes and repatriate human remains and cultural items to them. Images or reproductions do not fall under that law, but are included in the district’s moratorium.
FIRE’s main First Amendment concern is the inclusion of the “images or reproductions” in the district’s policy.
“Courts have repeatedly held that the First Amendment protects faculty expression that is ‘related to scholarship or teaching’ or ‘germane to the classroom subject matter,’ including showing photographs that are relevant to the course material,” Marchand told The Fix. “Even if well-intentioned, this policy severely limits educational opportunities and makes professors think twice before signing up to teach Native American history.”
FIRE’s fight against these policies began when it sent a letter to the district last August calling for the narrowing of the moratorium to exclude images or reproductions.
After the district responded that the policy was out of respect for Native American tribes, FIRE responded again in October about the district’s duty to the First Amendment.
After the October letter, the district’s Academic Senate, assisted by FIRE attorney Daniel Ortner, released a new policy that “leaves replicas and images out of any bureaucratic review process,” according to FIRE.
However, in March, the district informed FIRE that the new policy would not take effect until tribal partners provide their feedback, which prompted Marchand’s third letter.
Scholars say policy hinders students’ education
One professor in an impacted department within the district told The Fix the ban hinders scholars’ ability to provide a thorough, quality education to their students. The professor requested anonymity due to concerns about potential backlash from the district.
“Students who decide to pursue forensic anthropology, for example, will be at a disadvantage by not having had access to 1. Real human skeletal material, and 2. A full range of diverse replicas of human skulls, illustrating human variation,” the professor told The Fix. “Do we want our future doctors only trained on subpar plastic materials?”
Additionally, the professor said the district did not seek faculty input either, “which caused the moratorium to act like a sledgehammer to our collections, rather than the scalpel that it should have been.”
“The moratorium put restrictions on the very faculty who had been trying to repatriate remains since the passage of NAGPRA over 30 years ago, implying that the departmental faculty were the ones who needed to be told what they could and could not use in the classroom,” the professor said.
Not only do professors have the normal workload of preparing for the course, but they also now must determine if materials they are showing are allowed, according to the professor.
“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.
Elizabeth Weiss, an anthropologist and emeritus professor at San Jose State University, echoed the professor’s concerns. She believes these policies do nothing but hurt teachers and students.
“Does this moratorium mean that if you go into a library and there are journals with photographs of Native American remains, all of those need to be removed? If I’m a professor, I have an office and I have a book out that has a photo of a Native American bone or an artifact, does that need to be removed?” Weiss told The Fix. “That’s where it’s heading.”
Weiss said this affects more classes than just anthropology and history.
“The more we remove artifact images and reproductions from studying past human cultures, the more we’re going to leave that gap to be filled with nonsense quite honestly,” Weiss said. “There are also many fields people go into where they need to understand human nature, human biology and skeletal anatomy. Those fields will be affected, too.”
This even extends to subjects like nursing, chiropractic and medical school, according to Weiss, which could result in poorly trained doctors, chiropractors, and other professionals.
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IMAGE CAPTION AND CREDIT: A Native American Indian female dress from the Lakota culture is on display at a museum. tolobalaguer/Shutterstock