Frustrated tribal leaders and lawmakers are set to press top California State University administrators on Tuesday about their decades-long failure to return Native American human remains and artifacts to appropriate tribal descendants in violation of state and federal laws.
A news briefing with tribal officials and legislators will be followed by a joint committee oversight hearing highlighting findings from a state auditor’s report released in June.
The review cites the CSU system’s lapses and failures to ensure the timely return of Native American remains and cultural objects.
Lawmakers will closely probe CSU officials for their responses to the audit and for an explanation of the state system’s failure to comply with the 1990 federal Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act, or NAGRPRA, and its 2001 state counterpart, CalNAGPRA.
Only 6% of CSU’s almost 700,000 remains and items have been repatriated, according to the audit.
Key findings of the audit — which reviewed all 23 CSU campuses and conducted on-site reviews at four sites, Chico State University, Sacramento State University, San Diego State University, and San Jose State University — included:
• Twelve of the 21 CSU campuses with collections have not finished reviews required by NAGPRA, and 16 campuses have little or no repatriation activities.
• Two campuses returned remains to tribes without following NAGPRA’s requirements for notifying other tribes and six campuses violated CalNAGPRA by handling collections without first consulting with tribes.
• Campuses lack the policies, funding, and staff to support repatriation efforts.
CSU Interim President Sylvia Alva will testify at the hearing along with the following CSU campus representatives:
• Min-Tung “Mike” Lee, president of Sonoma State University, which had the largest number of collections at 185,300 during the audit period, even as the campus review of remains and items has not been completed. Only 0.2% of the collection has been repatriated.
• CSU Chico President Steve Perez, whose campus has the second highest number of collections — 150,200 — and has returned some remains or items but has not followed the process outlined in NAGPRA.
• Luke Wood, president, CSU Sacramento, with the third largest collection numbered at 115,900, with 5% percent of the remains and artifacts repatriated. Its review has not been completed.
• Amir Dabirian, provost, CSU Fullerton, a campus with 8,300 collections of which 0.2%have been repatriated.
Four CSU campuses — Monterey Bay, Stanislaus, Bakersfield and Los Angeles — have not yet provided data needed to estimate the size of their NAGPRA collections.
The state auditor reported these four campuses showed human remains in their collections and disclosed holding more than 100 boxes still needing review.
Hearing will probe CSU failure to repatriate thousands of Native American remains and artifacts following highly critical state audit
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