OU’s WGS Center for Social Justice hosted a Q&A on issues surrounding Native American women and justice for the crimes against them during a Tuesday panel.
The “How Indian Country Will End MMIW” panel opened up with introductions from Women’s and Gender Studies chair and WGS Center for Social Justice director Traci Brynne Voyles. The panel was led by OU’s activist-in-residence Sarah Adams-Cornell and featured four other notable Native American women, including Olivia Gray, Halana Jay, Kendra Wilson-Clements and Brenda Golden.
Adams-Cornell is a member of the Choctaw Nation; the co-founder of Matriarch, a Native American-led program benefiting Native communities; serves on the board of directors for Sovereign Community School, an educational institution for Native American students looking to fulfill leadership opportunities; and is a member of The Auntie Project, a non-profit supporting Native American children.
Adams-Cornell discussed the difficulties surrounding justice for Native American women and working with law enforcement.
“It's a well known fact that the data on domestic violence and sexual assault in our community is wrong, (and) our women aren't reporting because we understand that the system that we report to is the same one that oppresses us.” said Adams-Cornell. “It's also understandable why our sisters don't report officially when the government — the federal government — prosecutes less than half of reported attacks.”
According to the National Indian Council on Aging, Inc, as of 2019, only 116 of the 5,712 cases of murdered or missing Native American women were logged into the Department of Justice’s nationwide database. 37 percent of the cases were declined to proceed by U.S. attorneys' offices, and 70 percent of those same cases were declined due to a lack of evidence.
Gray, a member of the Osage Nation and director of the tribe’s domestic violence agency, was the second panelist to speak. She founded the Northeast Oklahoma Indigenous Safety and Education Foundation (NOISE), works with domestic violence survivors, deals with law enforcement for the victims and is married to former Principal Chief of the Osage Nation Jim Gray.
In Gray’s portion of the panel, she discussed tribal impact and initiative surrounding MMIW, detailing how closely knit tribal communities are and how more often than not, the victim is known outside of their home state and tribe.
“When one of our women is hurt, the impact is wide. It's far and wide. And it's not just in their own tribal community — it can be across Indian country.” said Gray, “There's always that hurt for all of our people (when) one of our relatives is hurt, or when one of our relatives is killed, or missing.”
Gray also spoke on the difficulty of MMIW cases within the tribe and the importance of community support.
“We've all been involved in raising money to do those searches, (get) retainers for attorneys ... Just different things that the families need.” said Gray, “But we're also there with the families, just to listen. Just to be present, just to hold their hands, just to go to court with them. I think that's one important thing that our MMIW groups do. … We organize court support for families, so that they don't have to walk into those courtrooms alone.”
Gray also discussed how more support is needed for the endless amount of cases coming in, and how Oklahoma laws need to be changed. She detailed how even though 86 percent of Native American women are physically abused in their lifetime —not accounting for the number of abusers or the amount of instances—sentencing for domestic abuse doesn’t always fit the crime.
Gray said the law only recently extended some domestic abuse cases to fall under “violent.”
Governor Kevin Stitt signed House Bill 3251 in May, expanding the definition of violent crimes to include four domestic abuse charges, including strangulation. According to the Indian Law Resource Center, more than four out of five American Indian and Alaska Native women have experienced violence, and more than one in two have experienced sexual violence.
Wilson-Clements, who is a Two-Spirit citizen of the Choctaw Nation and serves as an advocate for Native American LGBTQ+ members, spoke next. She founded We The People Consulting, a Native American consulting firm built to aid various enterprises, and is the co-founder of Matriarch. During the panel, Wilson-Clements discussed the community efforts in searching for missing Native American persons.
“When you say community organizing, that's a really broad term. It is an extremely organized well-oiled strategic process by which we search for our relatives. It is a community driven effort.” said Wilson-Clements, “We have very little to sometimes no help or assistance from authorities. Local authorities, municipalities, cit(ies), state level, federal level. ... We just don't have that support, so we do it ourselves.”
Wilson-Clements highlighted her personal experience with searching for missing tribal members and the hurdles she faced.
Wilson-Clements discussed how, during her last two searches for missing people, law enforcement was often an obstacle and made it difficult for her to gain access to open records pertaining to the victims.
“It is times when these MMIWP women who come in and take the hands of our community, of those parents and guardians and family members who are missing loved ones and literally walk them step by step along the way. Holding their hand, holding their heart and helping them not just physically search for relatives, but also through the emotional process of it which is a considerable amount of the work as well.” said Wilson-Clements.
Jay — who is a member of the Apache and Comanche tribes, a nurse for over 17 years and the president of the Missing and Murdered Indigenous Persons Apache chapter — spoke next. She outlined what MMIW chapters do to help support the victims and family members of the victim, which included community-led searches for runaway minors, accessible resources for victims, law enforcement negotiation and spreading awareness on a higher level.
“We are the voice of the voiceless at this point, and we will continue to be the voice,” Jay said.
Jay encouraged audience members to stand in solidarity with attendees at the MMIW Awareness Day at the Oklahoma State Capitol on May 5.
Golden — a lawyer and activist from the Muscogee (Creek) Nation who helped start the first MMIW group in Oklahoma — spoke last, discussinf the legal reforms that are being made for MMIW, including a bill she authored that recently passed out of the Oklahoma House Public Safety Committee.
House Bill 1790, also known as the Kasey Alert Act, is named after Cherokee citizen Kasey Russell who went missing five years ago. The bill would enable an emergency alert sent to phones for adults between 18-59 who are assumed to be in danger.
Currently the U.S. deploys AMBER, Silver, and Golden alerts for minors, individuals with mental or cognitive disabilities and senior citizens above the age of 59.
“The Department of Justice initiated Operation Lady Justice, which started a task force to not only study the issue of missing and murdered Indigenous women, but also to develop strategies to combat that epidemic,” Golden said.
According to the Department of Justice, Operation Lady Justice is a task force initiated by the Trump administration to aid tribes regarding cold cases, developing protocols, education and expanded awareness for crimes against Native American people. Its goal is to better data collection and develop strategies for investigations.
Golden also mentioned two other federal laws passed by Congress involving MMIW, called Savanna’s Act and the Not Invisible Act. Both laws were passed in order to provide better support for tribes when dealing with law enforcement on cases involving violent crimes against Native Americans.
Adams-Cornell also addressed students being better educated on Native American issues, referencing OU’s mascot and slogan and the importance of learning the meaning behind them.
“As we've seen and heard from the powers at OU, they feel that they have reclaimed the meaning of those words, and that absolutely is not true. For a lot of people in the Native community, they still ring true to us and we know what that means. That would be a step to make it a more safe space for Indigenous students, or recruiting Indigenous students and keeping Indigenous students, because that's still a problem,” said Adams-Cornell.
Recently there has been debate over the saying “Boomer Sooner’” due to its ties to the 1889 Oklahoma Land Rush. “Boomer” refers to people who believed that Native American land should be public, while “sooner” refers to participants who prematurely acquired land before the rush started.
The panelists continued answering questions regarding how to support MMIW. The panelists said visiting MMIW websites, Facebook pages, contacting your local legislatures to help advance bills in support of reform and being an advocate for the voiceless are the best ways to show support.
More information on MMIWP can be found by visiting Matriarch, the Coalition to Stop Violence Against Native Women and the National Indigenous Women’s Resource Center.
