Editor’s Commentary: Honoring the Legacy of Elizabeth Cook-Lynn

When Melanie K. Yazzie and Nick Estes approached me several years ago with the suggestion for a special issue of Wicazo Sa Review in honor of Elizabeth Cook-Lynn’s many accomplishments, I became ecstatic because these graduate students had recognized the significance of her intellectual contributions to our knowledge. Liz, as we call her, truly deserves such an acknowledgment of her accomplishments from the journal that she cofounded in 1985.¹ Although now in her mid-eighties and living in the Black Hills near Rapid City, South Dakota, she continues to fiercely oppose the crippling effects of colonialism and anti-Indianism on Indian life and sovereignty. What should we expect? After all, she is legendary for her fervor to develop American Indian studies as a stand-alone academic discipline, criticism of academia for its flawed research methodologies and analyses pertaining to the history of Indian–white relations, scathing critiques of imperialistic U.S. Indian laws and policies, and promotion of Indian nationalism as a strategy of Indian survival as distinct, self-governing political entities.

In this commentary, I will share a few of my memories about the role that Cook-Lynn played in the creation of the American Indian studies program at Arizona State University (ASU). I had the good fortune to meet her on February 8, 1993, at Scottsdale Community College on the Salt River Pima and Maricopa Indian Community in Arizona during a regional hearing of the U.S. Senate Select Committee on Indian Affairs about amending the “toothless” American Indian Religious Freedom Act of 1978. Dr. Beatrice Medicine,² a mutual friend, introduced us. Of course, I did not realize then that Cook-Lynn and her writings would have such a lasting influence on my views about what American Indian studies should be.³

Cook-Lynn’s association with ASU started in the late 1990s. As Dr. Carol Chiago Lujan, I, and others began the work of developing an AIS program, we called on Cook-Lynn for her expertise and leadership in this area. She subsequently agreed to come to campus during several spring semesters in the capacity of a visiting professor. During meetings and one-on-one conversations, she spoke with eloquence and authority about the defensive, regulatory, and transformative roles of AIS while stressing that AIS must be grounded on the principles of sovereignty and indigenousness.⁴ With the support of the ASU administration and our allies, we have built a stand-alone program with its own paradigm, faculty, curriculum, methodologies, journal, conference, and undergraduate and graduate programs.⁵ Our curriculum has grown to include a rich array of course offerings about matters such as U.S. Indian law, U.S. policy, human rights, governance, repatriation and sacred place issues, colonization/decolonization, human rights, health, historical trauma, activism, leadership, economic development, intellectualism, and language. Our eight full-time faculty members, all citizens of various Indian nations, earned doctorates in AIS, history, philosophy, education, sociology, and social work.⁶

Adhering to a Cook-Lynn tenet,⁷ we faculty members view our research, teaching, and service as a “‘sacred’ responsibility to Indian nations undertaken for the sake of cultural survival.”⁸ Essentially then, the AIS model at ASU is tacitly grounded in the notion that being an AIS professor is substantially more than an eight-to-five job: it is a way of life that entails a willingness to make sacrifices for the common good.

We strive to equip our students with a useful set of skills for success in various employment settings with practical and intellectual knowledge of Indian issues. Some of our undergraduate alumni have entered graduate studies and law school while others have found employment in the public and private sectors. Of particular note, Stephen Roe Lewis, a 2005 graduate, is now completing his first term as the governor of the Gila River Indian Community in Arizona.⁹ Graduates of our relatively new master’s program are finding similar opportunities.

Over the years, ASU’s administrative support for AIS and other Indian-focused programs has grown. On August 31, 2015, President Michael M. Crow sent an...