<div dir="ltr"><div dir="ltr"><p dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.38;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt" id="gmail-m_462989044529191899gmail-docs-internal-guid-c4eed37a-7fff-b994-2507-220629604121"><span style="font-size:11pt;font-family:Arial;color:rgb(0,0,0);background-color:transparent;font-weight:700;font-style:italic;font-variant:normal;text-decoration:none;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap">Land Theft and University Wealth</span></p><br><p dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.38;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt"><span style="font-size:11pt;font-family:Arial;color:rgb(0,0,0);background-color:transparent;font-weight:400;font-style:normal;font-variant:normal;text-decoration:none;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap">Private property is so thoroughly integrated into the ways many of us live on and relate to land that we hardly take a moment to consider it. Land is owned, passed from one property owner to the next; links in a never-ending chain of possession. But this chain of possession began with dispossession: the massive theft of Native lands across the North American continent. Through coercion, manipulation, and violence, the wealth of the United States was built on stolen land.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.38;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt"><span style="font-size:11pt;font-family:Arial;color:rgb(0,0,0);background-color:transparent;font-weight:400;font-style:normal;font-variant:normal;text-decoration:none;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap"> </span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.38;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt"><span style="font-size:11pt;font-family:Arial;color:rgb(0,0,0);background-color:transparent;font-weight:400;font-style:normal;font-variant:normal;text-decoration:none;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap">One of our primary goals for this reading group is to consider the relationship between the Yale Forest School and the nearly 11,000 acres of forestland it owns and operates for research, education, and profit. In Week 1, we used Native Land Digital’s</span><a href="https://native-land.ca/" style="text-decoration:none" target="_blank"><span style="font-size:11pt;font-family:Arial;color:rgb(0,0,0);background-color:transparent;font-weight:400;font-style:normal;font-variant:normal;text-decoration:none;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap"> </span><span style="font-size:11pt;font-family:Arial;color:rgb(17,85,204);background-color:transparent;font-weight:400;font-style:normal;font-variant:normal;text-decoration:underline;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap">Native Land Map</span></a><span style="font-size:11pt;font-family:Arial;color:rgb(0,0,0);background-color:transparent;font-weight:400;font-style:normal;font-variant:normal;text-decoration:none;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap"> to learn more about the Native peoples and Nations who have long held deep relationships with the land that the Yale Forests rest upon. This week, we’ll situate Yale’s land ownership in the context of the Morrill Act, a defining piece of legislation for the country’s institutions of higher learning.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.38;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt"><span style="font-size:11pt;font-family:Arial;color:rgb(0,0,0);background-color:transparent;font-weight:400;font-style:normal;font-variant:normal;text-decoration:none;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap"> </span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.38;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt"><span style="font-size:11pt;font-family:Arial;color:rgb(0,0,0);background-color:transparent;font-weight:400;font-style:normal;font-variant:normal;text-decoration:none;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap">Signed into law by Abraham Lincoln in 1862, the Morrill Act made millions of acres of Native land, claimed by the federal government through treaties, seizure, or cession, available to states across the country. States then allocated the land to universities to conserve and invest the principal and to provide education in “agricultural science and mechanical arts.” In High Country News in March of this year, Robert Lee and Tristan Ahtone published two years of extensive research into the Morrill Act. The article is an exhaustive piece of journalism, detailing the transfer of nearly 11 million acres of land from “nearly 250 tribes, bands and communities through over 160 violence-backed land cessions.” To the universities who received these lands, they were collectively worth half a billion dollars, raising capital for endowments that still keep these universities operating today. For this violent taking of their land, Native tribes </span><span style="font-size:11pt;font-family:Arial;color:rgb(0,0,0);background-color:transparent;font-weight:400;font-style:italic;font-variant:normal;text-decoration:none;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap">collectively</span><span style="font-size:11pt;font-family:Arial;color:rgb(0,0,0);background-color:transparent;font-weight:400;font-style:normal;font-variant:normal;text-decoration:none;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap"> received less than $400,000 from the U.S. Government. Many received nothing at all.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.38;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt"><span style="font-size:11pt;font-family:Arial;color:rgb(0,0,0);background-color:transparent;font-weight:400;font-style:normal;font-variant:normal;text-decoration:none;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap"> </span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.38;margin-top:2pt;margin-bottom:2pt"><span style="font-size:11pt;font-family:Arial;color:rgb(0,0,0);background-color:transparent;font-weight:700;font-style:normal;font-variant:normal;text-decoration:none;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap">“Land-grab universities: Expropriated Indigenous land is the foundation of the land-grant university system” by Robert Lee and Tristan Ahtone, published by High Country News</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.38;margin-top:2pt;margin-bottom:2pt"><a href="https://www.hcn.org/issues/52.4/indigenous-affairs-education-land-grab-universities" style="text-decoration:none" target="_blank"><span style="font-size:11pt;font-family:Arial;color:rgb(17,85,204);background-color:transparent;font-weight:400;font-style:normal;font-variant:normal;text-decoration:underline;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap">https://www.hcn.org/issues/52.4/indigenous-affairs-education-land-grab-universities</span></a></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.38;margin-top:2pt;margin-bottom:2pt"><span style="font-size:11pt;font-family:Arial;color:rgb(0,0,0);background-color:transparent;font-weight:400;font-style:italic;font-variant:normal;text-decoration:none;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap">Published March 30, 2020</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.38;margin-top:2pt;margin-bottom:2pt"><span style="font-size:11pt;font-family:Arial;color:rgb(0,0,0);background-color:transparent;font-weight:400;font-style:italic;font-variant:normal;text-decoration:none;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap"> </span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.38;margin-top:2pt;margin-bottom:2pt"><span style="font-size:11pt;font-family:Arial;color:rgb(0,0,0);background-color:transparent;font-weight:400;font-style:normal;font-variant:normal;text-decoration:none;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap">If you’d also like to explore this topic by listening, we recommend this episode of The Red Nation Podcast, an interview with the authors of the above High Country News piece:</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.38;margin-top:2pt;margin-bottom:2pt"><span style="font-size:11pt;font-family:Arial;color:rgb(0,0,0);background-color:transparent;font-weight:400;font-style:normal;font-variant:normal;text-decoration:none;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap"><br></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.38;margin-top:2pt;margin-bottom:2pt"><span style="font-size:11pt;font-family:Arial;color:rgb(0,0,0);background-color:transparent;font-weight:700;font-style:normal;font-variant:normal;text-decoration:none;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap">“How universities benefit from stolen land w/ Tristan Ahtone & Bobby Lee” from The Red Nation Podcast </span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.38;margin-top:2pt;margin-bottom:2pt"><a href="https://soundcloud.com/therednationpod/how-universities-benefit-from" style="text-decoration:none" target="_blank"><span style="font-size:11pt;font-family:Arial;color:rgb(17,85,204);background-color:transparent;font-weight:400;font-style:normal;font-variant:normal;text-decoration:underline;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap">https://soundcloud.com/therednationpod/how-universities-benefit-from</span></a><span style="font-size:11pt;font-family:Arial;color:rgb(0,0,0);background-color:transparent;font-weight:700;font-style:normal;font-variant:normal;text-decoration:none;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap"> </span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.38;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt"><span style="font-size:11pt;font-family:Arial;color:rgb(0,0,0);background-color:transparent;font-weight:400;font-style:normal;font-variant:normal;text-decoration:none;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap"> </span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.38;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt"><span style="font-size:11pt;font-family:Arial;color:rgb(0,0,0);background-color:transparent;font-weight:400;font-style:normal;font-variant:normal;text-decoration:none;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap">It might surprise you to know that Yale University was one of the nation’s original land-grant colleges. Throughout the second half of the 19</span><span style="font-size:11pt;font-family:Arial;color:rgb(0,0,0);background-color:transparent;font-weight:400;font-style:normal;font-variant:normal;text-decoration:none;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap"><span style="font-size:0.6em;vertical-align:super">th</span></span><span style="font-size:11pt;font-family:Arial;color:rgb(0,0,0);background-color:transparent;font-weight:400;font-style:normal;font-variant:normal;text-decoration:none;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap"> century, Yale had a thriving agricultural program, housed in the Sheffield Scientific School. As a result of this curriculum, the university was eligible for state land grants, and became a recipient of Morrill Act Land. High Country News reports:</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.38;margin:10pt 43pt 8pt"><span style="font-size:11pt;font-family:Arial;color:rgb(0,0,0);background-color:transparent;font-weight:400;font-style:normal;font-variant:normal;text-decoration:none;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap">“Yale was assigned the benefit of 180,000 acres of Morrill Act scrip, eventually redeemed from the former homelands of 53 tribal nations. That land was transferred to the United States through 33 ratified and unratified treaties made between 1808 and 1858. Connecticut sold the entire lot in a block in 1863 for $135,000, raised primarily at the expense of the Ojibwe and Odawa, whose lopsided land cessions contained more than 70% of what became the state’s grant.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.38;margin:10pt 43pt 8pt"><span style="font-size:11pt;font-family:Arial;color:rgb(0,0,0);background-color:transparent;font-weight:400;font-style:normal;font-variant:normal;text-decoration:none;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap">Interest from the fund provided scholarships for in-state students until Connecticut reassigned the endowment to the University of Connecticut (then known as Storrs Agricultural College) in 1893. Yale went to court and later received a settlement for the full $135,000 plus interest, worth about $4.8 million in today’s dollars.”</span></p><br><p dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.38;margin-top:2pt;margin-bottom:2pt"><span style="font-size:11pt;font-family:Arial;color:rgb(0,0,0);background-color:transparent;font-weight:700;font-style:normal;font-variant:normal;text-decoration:none;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap">“When Yale Was A Farming School” by Judith Ann Schiff, published by Yale Alumni Magazine</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.38;margin-top:2pt;margin-bottom:2pt"><a href="https://yalealumnimagazine.com/articles/2405-when-yale-was-a-farming-school" style="text-decoration:none" target="_blank"><span style="font-size:11pt;font-family:Arial;color:rgb(17,85,204);background-color:transparent;font-weight:400;font-style:normal;font-variant:normal;text-decoration:underline;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap">https://yalealumnimagazine.com/articles/2405-when-yale-was-a-farming-school</span></a></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.38;margin-top:2pt;margin-bottom:2pt"><span style="font-size:11pt;font-family:Arial;color:rgb(0,0,0);background-color:transparent;font-weight:400;font-style:italic;font-variant:normal;text-decoration:none;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap">Published March/April, 2009</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.38;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt"><span style="font-size:11pt;font-family:Arial;color:rgb(0,0,0);background-color:transparent;font-weight:400;font-style:normal;font-variant:normal;text-decoration:none;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap"> </span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.38;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt"><span style="font-size:11pt;font-family:Arial;color:rgb(0,0,0);background-color:transparent;font-weight:400;font-style:normal;font-variant:normal;text-decoration:none;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap">For us Forest Fellows, the legacy of the Morrill Act at Yale is especially direct. According to Judith Schiff writing for the Yale Alumni Magazine, Yale lost its status as the state’s land grant institution when the State Grange complained that high admissions standards were depriving the state’s farmers of the full benefits of the Morrill Act. Professors in the Sheffield Scientific School went on to organize Yale’s Forestry School.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.38;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt"><span style="font-size:11pt;font-family:Arial;color:rgb(0,0,0);background-color:transparent;font-weight:400;font-style:normal;font-variant:normal;text-decoration:none;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap"> </span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.38;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt"><span style="font-size:11pt;font-family:Arial;color:rgb(0,0,0);background-color:transparent;font-weight:400;font-style:normal;font-variant:normal;text-decoration:none;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap">How do we reconcile the origins of Yale’s wealth and the dispossession it entailed? With an endowment built on the violent appropriation of Native land, what responsibilities do we have to correct that history, to right wrongs? Furthermore, how does the history of Morrill legislation change the way we think about university-owned property and endowments? </span></p><br><p dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.38;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt"><span style="font-size:11pt;font-family:Arial;color:rgb(0,0,0);background-color:transparent;font-weight:400;font-style:normal;font-variant:normal;text-decoration:none;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap">The nearly 11,000 acres of forestland owned by Yale’s Forest School didn’t come directly from Morrill Act land grants, but it is still the result of violence-backed Native land theft. We shouldn’t have to speak in monetary terms to understand why this theft is wrong. But now that the theft has been quantified, how can we reconcile? According to High Country News:</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.38;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt"><span style="font-size:11pt;font-family:Arial;color:rgb(0,0,0);background-color:transparent;font-weight:400;font-style:normal;font-variant:normal;text-decoration:none;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap"> </span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.38;margin:10pt 43pt 8pt"><span style="font-size:11pt;font-family:Arial;color:rgb(0,0,0);background-color:transparent;font-weight:400;font-style:normal;font-variant:normal;text-decoration:none;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap">“…there are some hints. The American Indian and Indigenous Studies Department at Michigan State University, for instance, has incorporated language on the Morrill Act’s relationship to expropriation and genocide in its extended </span><a href="http://aisp.msu.edu/about/land/" style="text-decoration:none" target="_blank"><span style="font-size:11pt;font-family:Arial;color:rgb(17,85,204);background-color:transparent;font-weight:400;font-style:normal;font-variant:normal;text-decoration:underline;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap">land acknowledgment</span></a><span style="font-size:11pt;font-family:Arial;color:rgb(0,0,0);background-color:transparent;font-weight:400;font-style:normal;font-variant:normal;text-decoration:none;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap">. But perhaps most strikingly, the </span><a href="https://www.sdstate.edu/wokini" style="text-decoration:none" target="_blank"><span style="font-size:11pt;font-family:Arial;color:rgb(17,85,204);background-color:transparent;font-weight:400;font-style:normal;font-variant:normal;text-decoration:underline;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap">Wokini Initiative</span></a><span style="font-size:11pt;font-family:Arial;color:rgb(0,0,0);background-color:transparent;font-weight:400;font-style:normal;font-variant:normal;text-decoration:none;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap"> at South Dakota State University has recently redirected income from its remaining Morrill acres into programming and support for Native students hoping to attend SDSU.”</span></p><br><p dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.38;margin-right:43pt;margin-top:10pt;margin-bottom:8pt"><span style="font-size:11pt;font-family:Arial;color:rgb(0,0,0);background-color:transparent;font-weight:400;font-style:normal;font-variant:normal;text-decoration:none;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap">We, of course, don’t have the answers here. We join the chorus of voices urging institutions to truly commit to interrogating their histories and moving forward more justly. By learning from these resources, we hope to facilitate a greater understanding of the varied mechanisms the United States government has used over the years to claim and seize Native lands. We’ll continue to examine these themes of theft and dispossession over the next few weeks, and hope to continue to engage thoughtfully and critically with this material as we move forward.</span></p><br><p dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.38;margin-right:43pt;margin-top:10pt;margin-bottom:8pt"><span style="font-size:11pt;font-family:Arial;color:rgb(0,0,0);background-color:transparent;font-weight:400;font-style:normal;font-variant:normal;text-decoration:none;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap">Here are some questions we’re considering this week, which we encourage you to consider as well:</span></p><ul><li><span style="font-size:11pt;font-family:Arial;color:rgb(0,0,0);background-color:transparent;font-weight:400;font-style:normal;font-variant:normal;text-decoration:none;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap">What is your personal relationship to lands transferred by the Morrill Act? </span></li><li><span style="font-size:11pt;font-family:Arial;color:rgb(32,31,30);background-color:rgb(255,255,255);font-weight:400;font-style:normal;font-variant:normal;text-decoration:none;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap">How has your university - or a university near you - benefited from Native land theft? </span><span style="font-size:11pt;font-family:Arial;color:rgb(0,0,0);background-color:transparent;font-weight:400;font-style:normal;font-variant:normal;text-decoration:none;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap">How have you personally benefited from your relationships to these institutions?</span></li><li><span style="font-size:11pt;font-family:Arial;color:rgb(0,0,0);background-color:transparent;font-weight:400;font-style:normal;font-variant:normal;text-decoration:none;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap">How is the knowledge that these universities create -- and the power and privilege they confer -- dependent upon Native land theft?</span></li><li><span style="font-size:11pt;font-family:Arial;color:rgb(32,31,30);background-color:rgb(255,255,255);font-weight:400;font-style:normal;font-variant:normal;text-decoration:none;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap">How can we acknowledge and address land theft? To whom does the responsibility of this acknowledgement fall? How successful have we/they been?</span></li></ul><div>--</div><div><br></div><div><p dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.38;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt" id="gmail-m_462989044529191899gmail-docs-internal-guid-5d183bd6-7fff-e870-1b49-8bc025dac45b"><span style="font-size:11pt;font-family:Arial;color:rgb(0,0,0);background-color:transparent;font-weight:400;font-style:normal;font-variant:normal;text-decoration:none;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap">Thanks so much for following along this week! Have thoughts, comments, or reflections you’d like to share? Are there resources you feel we should have included? We hope you’ll send an email our way: </span><a href="mailto:yale-forests-reading-group@mailman.yale.edu" style="text-decoration:none" target="_blank"><span style="font-size:11pt;font-family:Arial;color:rgb(17,85,204);background-color:transparent;font-weight:400;font-style:normal;font-variant:normal;text-decoration:underline;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap">yale-forests-reading-group@mailman.yale.edu</span></a><span style="font-size:11pt;font-family:Arial;color:rgb(0,0,0);background-color:transparent;font-weight:400;font-style:normal;font-variant:normal;text-decoration:none;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap"> or check us out on Instagram: </span><a href="https://www.instagram.com/yaleschoolforests/" style="text-decoration:none" target="_blank"><span style="font-size:11pt;font-family:Arial;color:rgb(17,85,204);background-color:transparent;font-weight:400;font-style:normal;font-variant:normal;text-decoration:underline;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap">https://www.instagram.com/yaleschoolforests/</span></a><span style="font-size:11pt;font-family:Arial;color:rgb(0,0,0);background-color:transparent;font-weight:400;font-style:normal;font-variant:normal;text-decoration:none;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap">. Let us know if you would like us to consider sharing your comment with the whole group! If you would be more comfortable sharing thoughts and feedback with us anonymously, please do so here: </span><a href="https://forms.gle/4tPajvuuB6vpC9mGA" style="text-decoration:none" target="_blank"><span style="font-size:11pt;font-family:Arial;color:rgb(17,85,204);background-color:transparent;font-weight:400;font-style:normal;font-variant:normal;text-decoration:underline;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap">https://forms.gle/4tPajvuuB6vpC9mGA</span></a><span style="font-size:11pt;font-family:Arial;color:rgb(0,0,0);background-color:transparent;font-weight:400;font-style:normal;font-variant:normal;text-decoration:none;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap">. </span></p><br><span style="font-size:11pt;font-family:Arial;color:rgb(0,0,0);background-color:transparent;font-weight:400;font-style:normal;font-variant:normal;text-decoration:none;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap">Think a friend might enjoy subscribing? They can subscribe and learn more at our info page: </span><a href="https://mailman.yale.edu/mailman/listinfo/yale-forests-reading-group" style="text-decoration:none" target="_blank"><span style="font-size:11pt;font-family:Arial;color:rgb(17,85,204);background-color:transparent;font-weight:400;font-style:normal;font-variant:normal;text-decoration:underline;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap">https://mailman.yale.edu/mailman/listinfo/yale-forests-reading-group</span></a><span style="font-size:11pt;font-family:Arial;color:rgb(0,0,0);background-color:transparent;font-weight:400;font-style:normal;font-variant:normal;text-decoration:none;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap">. You can find past posts in our archives: </span><a href="https://mailman.yale.edu/pipermail/yale-forests-reading-group/" style="text-decoration:none" target="_blank"><span style="font-size:11pt;font-family:Arial;color:rgb(17,85,204);background-color:transparent;font-weight:400;font-style:normal;font-variant:normal;text-decoration:underline;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap">https://mailman.yale.edu/pipermail/yale-forests-reading-group/</span></a><span style="font-size:11pt;font-family:Arial;color:rgb(0,0,0);background-color:transparent;font-weight:400;font-style:normal;font-variant:normal;text-decoration:none;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap">.<span style="font-size:11pt;font-family:Arial;color:rgb(32,31,30);background-color:rgb(255,255,255);font-weight:400;font-style:normal;font-variant:normal;text-decoration:none;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap" id="gmail-m_462989044529191899gmail-docs-internal-guid-df8b2e12-7fff-c7a4-c03f-d5ab0ecc7ce3"><br></span></span></div><div><span style="font-size:11pt;font-family:Arial;color:rgb(0,0,0);background-color:transparent;font-weight:400;font-style:normal;font-variant:normal;text-decoration:none;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap"><span style="font-size:11pt;font-family:Arial;color:rgb(32,31,30);background-color:rgb(255,255,255);font-weight:400;font-style:normal;font-variant:normal;text-decoration:none;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap" id="gmail-m_462989044529191899gmail-docs-internal-guid-df8b2e12-7fff-c7a4-c03f-d5ab0ecc7ce3"><br></span></span></div><div><span style="font-size:11pt;font-family:Arial;color:rgb(0,0,0);background-color:transparent;font-weight:400;font-style:normal;font-variant:normal;text-decoration:none;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap"><span style="font-size:11pt;font-family:Arial;color:rgb(32,31,30);background-color:rgb(255,255,255);font-weight:400;font-style:normal;font-variant:normal;text-decoration:none;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap" id="gmail-m_462989044529191899gmail-docs-internal-guid-df8b2e12-7fff-c7a4-c03f-d5ab0ecc7ce3">We would like to express our deep gratitude for those leading the interrogation of the history and continued impacts of Native land theft. Particularly, we would like to thank the creators whose knowledge and work we shared here, with special thanks to Robert Lee and Triston Ahtone (</span><a href="https://tristanahtone.net/" style="text-decoration:none" target="_blank"><span style="font-size:11pt;font-family:Arial;color:rgb(17,85,204);background-color:rgb(255,255,255);font-weight:400;font-style:normal;font-variant:normal;text-decoration:underline;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap">https://tristanahtone.net/</span></a><span style="font-size:11pt;font-family:Arial;color:rgb(32,31,30);background-color:rgb(255,255,255);font-weight:400;font-style:normal;font-variant:normal;text-decoration:none;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap">). Thank you for assisting us in our journey to learn about and confront atrocities both past and present, in our attempt to create a better, more just future -- personally, institutionally, nationally, and globally. </span></span></div></div></div>