1912 NCAA Men's Basketball All-Americans

Transcription

♪ KU choral chant ♪ Sarah: There was probably part of me, the rebel inside of me, that didn't want to follow in my family's footsteps but I'm really proud that I ended up in KU Law and am teaching today. Sarah to class: Now Lakota people didn't have courts. They didn't have a courtroom. Sarah: I'm a citizen of the Muscogee Creek Nation of Oklahoma. My paternal grandfather was in the state legislature and as far as we know he may have been the first Native person to serve in the legislature. He played a significant role in my life. I transferred to KU as a junior. Soon after I arrived in Lawrence, I trained to be a volunteer advocate at the local rape crisis center. And something started to emerge, something I didn't really understand as a Native woman myself. The level of trauma, the historical context in which Native women experience assault, really drove me to look at it as a legal issue. The statistics we have, and they're federal government statistics, tell us that Native women are raped at a higher rate than any other group in the United States. In fact, I think if we're honest about it, it's one of the highest rates in the world. ♪ music ♪ A lot of people talk about healing for people who have been sexually assaulted and I like that word but I like another word better. I like the word justice. ♪ music ♪ And justice doesn't mean justice in a courtroom. There's a lot of different ways especially for Native women to conceive of justice for their experience. And so definitely people need to heal, there's wounding, there's grief, all of those things are true but they deserve justice and as a lawyer that's kind of my job. Amnesty International first approached the Tribal Law and Policy Institute when I was living in Los Angeles and I said, "I think there could be a really powerful report done about Native women." And they agreed. So we started a 2-year journey and that journey included a lot of research, traveling out to reservations, and speaking to Native women who had survived assault. The report came out and immediately when the senators and their staffers started calling, it was like oh this is really going to change things. ♪ music ♪ Lisa Marie Iyotte: If the Tribal Law and Order Act had existed 16 years ago, my story would be very different. President Obama: When 1 in 3 Native American women will be raped in their lifetimes, that is an assault on our national conscience. It is an affront to our shared humanity. It is something that we cannot allow to continue. [applause] ♪ music ♪ Diane Millich: When this bill is signed, the Violence Against Women Act will finally reach Native American women like me. [applause] President Obama: Tribal governments have an inherent right to protect their people and all women deserve the right to live free from fear and that is what today is all about. [loud applause] ♪ music ♪ Sarah: There were a lot of people who said we couldn't do it. There were a lot of people who said that the things that we wanted to change in the law would never politically work. There was just no way Congress would pass these kinds of laws. But we didn't listen to them. Bonnie: We have so much more to do but it's like finally where their voices need to be heard, I think there was affirmation that they were heard. Sarah: A lot of survivors have reached out to me and said, "Thank you for saying what I couldn't say." And that's probably the best part of what I do. ♪ music ♪