CMYK
THE OFFICIAL STUDENT NEWSPAPER OF THE UNIVERSITY OF INDIANAPOLIS • FOUNDED 1922
VOL.
101
I S S UE 5
reflector.uindy.edu
NOVEMBER 22, 2022
Native American Heritage Month Acknowledging Indigenous Peoples' history, contributions during the Thanksgiving holiday time
Photo by MaKenna Maschino
Sophomore exercise science major Emma Moore is the only student at the University of Indianapolis officially registered with an Indigenous American Tribe. She is also part of a UIndy initiative working to provide land acknowledgments at major campus events.
By Anika Yoder
EDITORIAL ASSISTANT With holidays like Veterans Day and Thanksgiving, the month of November is full of remembrance, celebration and togetherness for those in the United States who observe them. For the last 32 years, November also has been designated as Native American Heritage Month, according to the United States Senate. The month was declared a time of recognition for Indigenous people and the land that was occupied before the existence of the United States. The bill was passed by Congress and signed into law by President George H. W. Bush in 1990, and since then Native American Heritage Month has been celebrated in November, according to
the U.S. Senate. Although Thanksgiving is a holiday celebrated across the country for many families and friends to come together to commemorate the season’s harvest and reflect on the past year, Thanksgiving is also a day of observance and grieving for Indigenous communities throughout the U.S. According to The Indianapolis Public Library’s website, Indigenous Peoples of Amer ic a recogniz e Thanksgiving as a day of mourning, a time to remember ancestral history and a day to acknowledge and protest the racism and oppression that they continue to experience today. In Indianapolis, the land occupied before the colonization of the area was inhabited by the Miami Tribe of Indiana, according to University o f I n d i a n a p o l i s Pr o f e s s o r o f
Anthropology Christopher Moore. “This is the ancestral land of the Miami, and [the Miami Peoples] still feel that way,” Christopher Moore said. “They may not have any legal claim to the land, but they still have a cultural claim to the land, and that's important.” According to the Kokomo Tribune, about half of the Miami People were forced out of their homelands in 1846, when some went on to Kansas and some to Oklahoma. Sophomore exercise science major and Miami Tribe member Emma Moore said she is a member of the Miami Tribe of Oklahoma. The tribe originated in the Indianapolis area, but they were stationed out of Oklahoma after they were forcibly removed by the United States government in the mid 1800s. Emma Moore is the only student currently
attending UIndy who is registered to an Moore focusing on appropriation Indigenous Nation and holds a Native versus appreciation. Senior Admissions American Tribal number, according Counselor for Diversity Recruitment to Vice President, Chief Inclusion and Assistant Director of the Office Officer, Interim Vice President for of Inclusion and Equity CariAnn Student Affairs and Dean of Students Freed presented a slideshow discussing Amber Smith. appropriation and modern Indigenous “I'm the only one who is actually communities, according to Emma identified, quote, a ‘Native American,’” Moore. Emma Moore said. “I don't know if “I did my poster on the history of that's because I have a tribal number–it's Native Americans in Indiana,” Hyzer kind of like a Social Security number– said. “That was about where they were but I thought that was reall y and what tribes there were, what were interesting.” the borders for each tribe based on our Sophomore psycholog y major now, kind of, counties.” Jezalyn Hyzer, a student who recently UIndy also has developed a task discovered she had an Indigenous force dedicated to drafting a land ancestor, said she wished that for the acknowledgment statement, according month of November and Indigenous to Co-Director of the Community heritage would be discussed more. Research Center, Assistant Professor Hyzer said she also wishes Indigenous of Sociology and Graduate Program culture and the true origins of Director for Master of Arts and Thanksgiving would Applied Sociology be talked about Colleen Wynn, who more in the U.S. is the task force coThe “whitewashed” chair, along with ...Native Americans versions seen in Christopher Moore. are not something textbooks and The task force is taught in elementary composed of 25 of the past." schools are not faculty, staff and telling the history students f rom and traditions of throughout the Indigenous Peoples, she said. university, according to Wynn. The land “Native Americans were on this acknowledgment statement recognizes land, and they were kicked off of the ancestral Indigenous land that the it,” Hyzer said. “It was claimed as university is on at major campus events somebody else's, when in fact, under and acknowledges the Indigenous Native American beliefs, nobody owns communities who still have stewardship any one piece [of land] because it's of the land, Christopher Moore said. not ours to own. It's ours to cooperate Indigenous communities who still see with and nourish, because we have to the land as part of their heritage are take care of it in order for it to provide recognized in the statement, he said. for us.” “Tribes–even though Indigenous Both Hyzer and Emma Moore Peoples, most of them now reside out presented a program titled “Indigenous west–still see this as their homeland,” Peoples’ Day Celebration, Ar t Christopher Moore said. “They didn't Experience Lab” on Oct. 10 to move away and forget about where they commemorate Indigenous People’s came from.” Day, which was celebrated on Oct. 9 Emma Moore is also a member of this year, according to the UIndy Office the task force and said the of Inclusion and Equity. The program acknowledgment is still in the process was split into three parts, with Hyzer of being drafted, but it will serve as focusing on Native Americans and a way to let people know that the their history in Indiana and Emma > See Native on Page 3
Affirmative action challenged in Court By Olivia Pastrick STAFF WRITER
According to Cornell Law School, affirmative action is a set of procedures designed to eliminate unlawful discrimination among college and job applicants, remedy the results of prior discrimination and prevent such discrimination in the future. Originally made as a provision for government contractors not to discriminate against minorities on a legal basis in Executive Order 10925 under President John F. Kennedy, affirmative action’s context has evolved to its current definition through several legal measures over the years. Now, affirmative action is used by many higher education institutions when determining which students to admit to their schools, with the demographics of race and/or ethnicity in mind. However, on Oct. 31, the Supreme Court heard two cases: Students for Fair Admissions, Inc. v. President & Fellows of Harvard College and Students for Fair Admissions, Inc. v. University of North Carolina. Both cases seek to overturn the ruling in Grutter v. Bollinger, which allows universities to
consider race in their admissions process, according to Boston University Today. University of Indianapolis Associate Professor of Political Science Laura Merrifield Wilson said the Supreme Court is looking into how affirmative action affects college admissions. She said that in the past, Supreme Court decisions have upheld colleges’ right to look at differences in candidates based on race or ethnicity as a part of the admissions process. “The concept behind affirmative action, and what makes it highly controversial, is that it does consider race and ethnicity. And when all other attributes of a candidate are the same, they will consider that as part of the holistic approach in terms of, in this case, college admissions,” Wilson said. Affirmative action takes these aspects into consideration in order to represent previously underrepresented groups of people,
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according to Wilson. “[Affirmative action] is trying to take into account the importance of diverse opinions, experiences, and ideas; and the idea behind affirmative action is to promote [diversity] so that you have a more representative body that reflects [the population] in the area,” Wilson said.
MEAL PLAN PRICING AT UINDY Read about one staff member’s opinion on UIndy’s meal swipe and dining pricing policy on Page 2.
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Ac c o rd i n g t o E n c yc l o p e d i a Britannica, affirmative action in the United States protects people on the basis of race, disability, gender identity, sexual orientation, ethnic origin and age. Affirmative action does this by giving limited preferences to these groups that have faced long-standing discrimination in job hiring,college admissions,government contracts and other social benefits, according to Encyclopedia Britannica. Wilson said that a common misconception, among her students in particular, is that affirmative action gives outright preference to underrepresented groups, when preference is only given if all other aspects of a candidate are the same. “[Affirmative action] is obviously controversial, but the arguments in favor of it are to rectify issues we’ve had in the past in terms of discrimination and in particular an imbalance of representation,”Wilson said. “For a long time, women and racial and ethnic minorities were excluded entirely [from public institutions] and then for a long time minimized, Graphic by Breanna Emmett almost tokenized. You have
INCREASING GAS PRICES
PATH4YOU
Average gas prices have been over four dollars a gallon in central Indiana. Find out why on Page 3.
Two UIndy students are working to make contraceptives available to everyone on campus through a partnership with the organization Path4You. Read about what this organization does and what it can bring to the university on Page 6.
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one or two, but nowhere near what’s representative of the entire population.” In terms of affirmative action as an ongoing social issue, Wilson said that it will likely continue cycling through the court system and will continue to be challenged, regardless of what the Supreme Court decides. “If [affirmative action was essentially legally dismantled], then institutions may change their policies, where they don’t consider race or ethnicity at all. I think you’ll also see some institutions go against that, and that would bring a further challenge to the court,” Wilson said. Wilson said that it is anticipated that affirmative action will be overturned because of the conservative majority in the Supreme Court, and that this will force many universities to revisit and make major changes to their admissions policies. “We don’t know what that decision will be, but we know that there will be a decision, because the court chose to select this case. And generally the Supreme Court sees over several thousand petitions a year, and they only take about a hundred cases,” Wilson said. “So the fact that they selected this one, as a court, > See Action on Page 3
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