APPLETON, WIS. — Kekek Jason Stark, a tribal attorney and policy analyst for the Great Lakes Indian Fish and Wildlife Commission, discusses the concepts and principles of treaty reserved rights and how those rights are being applied today in an address at Lawrence University.
Stark presents “Ojibwe Treaty Reserved Rights and the Great Lakes Indian Fish and Wildlife Commission” Tuesday, March 10 at 7 p.m. in Lawrence’s Wriston Art Center auditorium. The event is free and open to the pubic.
Stark’s presentation will examine U.S. Supreme Court rulings that have upheld American Indian rights to their land based on the recognition of Anishinaabe title and Anishinaabe rights.
Under the theory of Anishinaabe title, also known as aboriginal Indian title, Indigenous Nations have legal rights in the territories that they occupied. From Anishinaabe title comes the concept of Anishinaabe rights, which entail the use of a specifically allocated area for traditional purposes. This long established rule of Federal Indian Law supports the implementation of the treaty reserved rights of the Ojibwe bands.
Stark’s work with the Great Lakes Indian Fish and Wildlife Commission focuses on the preservation, implementation and utilization of treaty rights for 11 Ojibwe bands living in Michigan, Minnesota and Wisconsin. The Commission regulates the harvest of treaty resources in cooperation with the states to ensure conservation.
A graduate of Hamline University School of Law and a Bush Foundation Leadership Fellow, Stark is a Turtle Mountain Ojibwe and a member of the Bizhiw (Lynx) Clan.
His appearance is sponsored by the Lawrence University Office of Multicultural Affairs, the history department and is supported by the Green Roots Committee.
