Issues Under Review

UC Provost & Executive Vice President Michael Brown has submitted proposed revisions to the UC Presidential Policy on Native American Cultural Affiliation and Repatriation for Senate review. The changes incorporate the requirements of California Assembly Bill 275, which amended the California Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act of 2001.

UCOP has provided the following list of the changes to the interim policy, issued in June 2020.

1. Definitions (§ II) have been added and revised where needed to align with CalNAGPRA.
2. As required by CalNAGPRA, deference to Tribal traditional knowledge, oral histories, documentation, and testimonies is now indicated when determining state cultural affiliation, identifying cultural items under CalNAGPRA, and making decisions related to the CalNAGPRA repatriation process (§§ V.C.1 and V.J.1).
3. In consultation with California Native American Tribes, Campuses must prepare preliminary inventories/summaries by January 1, 2022 for submission to the NAHC (§§ V.B.1.k, V.C.1, and V.C.5).
4. The CalNAGPRA dispute procedures available to California Indian Tribes have been added (§ V.I).
5. The AB 275 procedures for submissions of claims under CalNAGPRA have been incorporated (§ V.D.3).
6. The flowcharts and narrative previously described in Appendices A, A-1, and B of the Interim Policy have been removed. These documents were intended as visual aids in understanding the consultation, claims, repatriation, and appeals processes described in the Interim Policy rather than as a means of separately conveying policy requirements not described in the Interim Policy. However, as stated in the revised Policy (§§ III.C, V.B.1.i, V.B.2, V.D.1, V.D.3, V.I, V.J.3, and VI.1), UC will maintain these flowcharts on UCOP’s NAGPRA website. This will allow UC to make more responsive ongoing updates to the flowcharts to clarify these processes as they are more fully implemented, based on feedback from Tribes, committee members, and UC repatriation staff.

A link to a cover memo from Provost Brown, and redlined and clean versions of the proposed policy is provided in the resources box. Faculty who wish to comment are welcome to do so. All comments received by April 30, 2021 will be included in the review materials for Senate Council consideration.

Steven Constable
Chair
Academic Senate, San Diego Division