Speakers for 2010 Conference
Elouise Cobell
Ms. Cobell is the Executive Director of the Native American Community Development Corporation and serves as Chairperson of the Board of Directors for Native American Bank, NA., Board Member of the Board of Investments of the State of Montana, a former Board Member for First Interstate Bank, a former Trustee of the National Museum of the American Indian, as well as a member of other boards. Ms. Cobell served for thirteen years as the Treasurer for the Blackfeet Indian Nation in Montana and her work on the Individual Indian Monies Trust Correction and Recovery Project has won admiration by many. This is a project to reform the U.S. Government's management of Individual Indian Trust Assets.
Stephen Cornell
Stephen Cornell, Ph.D., is professor of sociology and of public administration and policy at The University of Arizona, where he also directs the Udall Center for Studies in Public Policy. His Ph.D. is from the University of Chicago. He taught at Harvard University for nine years and at the University of California, San Diego for nine more before joining the Arizona faculty in 1998. While at Harvard, Professor Cornell co-founded the Harvard Project on American Indian Economic Development. At Arizona, he led the establishment of the Native Nations Institute for Leadership, Management, and Policy, a partner program to the Harvard Project. He has written widely on Indigenous affairs and has spent much of the last twenty-five years working with Indigenous nations and organizations in the U.S., Canada, and elsewhere on governance, development, and related policy issues.
MAJEL M. RUSSELL
Ms. Majel M. Russell was raised near Lodge Grass on the Crow Indian Reservation in Southeastern Montana and is an enrolled member of the Crow Tribe of Indians. Ms. Russell graduated from the University of Montana School of Law in 1992. Ms. Russell is a founding partner in the law firm and currently practices in numerous areas of law including, representation of Indian Tribes, Indian housing authorities, Indian businesses, school districts and other tribal entities, real estate transactions, agricultural leasing, water law, negotiations with federal and state entities, construction contracts and civil litigation in Federal, State and Tribal Courts.
Prior to opening the firm, Ms. Russell was an associate attorney at a law firm in Great Falls, Montana. Ms. Russell provided legal representation for numerous Indian housing authorities, including but not limited to, Fort Belknap Housing Authority, Blackfeet Indian Housing Authority and Crow Tribal Housing Authority. She also represented Indian school districts, private clients in civil litigation, and provided technical assistance, training, and representation for Indian Child Welfare Act cases and issues. Prior to working in Great Falls, Ms. Russell was the Chief Prosecutor for the Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes where she prosecuted adult and juvenile offenders and Fish and Game violators.
In June, 2007 Ms. Russell joined the United States Department of Interior as the Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary Indian Affairs in Washington, D.C. In that capacity, Ms. Russell oversaw programs within the Bureau of Indian Affairs, including Trust Services, Office of Justice Services (law enforcement services to Indian Country), Indian Services, Indian Office of Economic Development and Minerals Management, Office of Indian Gaming, Office of Tribal Acknowledgment and the Bureau of Indian Education. Ms. Russell’s role included advocacy on behalf Indian Affairs programs with the Secretary of Interior. Ms. Russell re-joined Elk River Law Office in 2008 and resumed a federal Indian law practice representing Tribes and Tribal entities.
JOHN F. DULLES
Human Rights/Management Consultant
Regional Director, United States Commission on Civil Rights,
Rocky Mountain Region, Denver, CO (retired)
John F. Dulles served in professional and managerial positions with the federal government for many years. From 1995 to 2007, he was the Regional Director of the United States Commission on Civil Rights’ Rocky Mountain Regional Office, directing civil rights research and educational activities in seven states: North and South Dakota, Utah, Montana, Wyoming, Colorado, and New Mexico. In this position, he was the Commission’s principal representative and spokesperson for the region. He also served as Deputy Regional Director for the commission’s five-state Southwestern Regional Office in Texas, and as senior policy and research analyst in the agency’s Western Region (California). He has extensive experience in media relations, including public relations campaigns, television and radio appearances, and interviews with print and electronic media. He has worked in a collaborative and productive manner with leaders of government, non-profit organizations and the private sector.
Mr. Dulles has directed the activities of federal civil rights advisory committees in more than 20 western and southwestern states, including Alaska and Hawaii. He has led public hearings and published extensively on a wide variety of national issues, including: voting rights, immigration, law enforcement, employment, minority business enterprise, education, housing, Native American rights, Native Hawaiian land claims, civil rights enforcement and health care. He has wide experience as a public speaker and trainer on civil rights, participating in numerous conferences and symposiums throughout the nation. Mr. Dulles has keynoted many events and delivers powerful, motivational and entertaining speeches on contemporary human rights and public policy issues. He conducts substantive workshops on a variety of subjects, including community empowerment, diversity, civil rights enforcement and race relations.
Since retiring from federal service, he has served as a consultant to the Colorado Civil Rights Division, assisted American Indian organizations and tribal governments in addressing off-reservation discrimination, and provided technical assistance to non-profit organizations. Mr. Dulles has assisted numerous local elected officials in establishing human relations commissions. He serves on the board of directors of the Latin American Research and Service Agency (LARASA), the nation’s first Hispanic non-profit organization, and is a member of the National Association of Human Rights Workers.
Mr. Dulles graduated with honors from the University of Texas in Austin, where he studied political science, journalism, history and business administration. He served as an Education Policy Fellow with the Institute of Educational leadership (Washington, D.C.) and was nominated for a Woodrow Wilson Fellowship. His federal career began as a researcher at the Library of Congress in Washington, DC, and includes six years of service with the federal Office of Economic Opportunity, funding, evaluating and providing technical assistance to anti-poverty programs in the southwest. He worked briefly in the Los Angeles Office of Fair Housing and Equal Opportunity (U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development), where he promoted fair housing through media and outreach activities in Los Angeles and San Diego.
Raised in Monterrey, Mexico, Mr. Dulles is bilingual (English/Spanish).
He has researched, conducted public hearings and published reports on immigration policy and U.S./Mexico border human rights concerns.
Contact Information:
John F. Dulles
Human Rights Consultancy
14142 McKay Park Circle
Broomfield CO 80023
720.304.8734
720.334.0094 (cell)
john.dulles@gmail.com
Stephen Pevar
Stephen Pevar is a graduate of Princeton University (1968) and the University of Virginia School of Law (1971). From 1971 through 1974, Mr. Pevar was a staff attorney with South Dakota Legal Services on the Rosebud Sioux Indian Reservation. From 1976 to the present, he has been a National Staff Counsel for the American Civil Liberties Union. In addition, from 1983 - 1999, Mr. Pevar was an Adjunct Professor at the University of Denver School of Law, where he taught a course entitled Federal Indian Law.
Mr. Pevar has litigated some 200 federal cases involving constitutional rights, including cases in more than ten different Federal District Courts, three different U.S. Courts of Appeals, and one case in the U.S. Supreme Court. His areas of specialty include free speech, Indian rights, prisoners’ rights, and separation of church and state.
Mr. Pevar is the author of The Rights of Indians and Tribes (New York University Press 2004) and a young-adult version of the same book entitled The Rights of American Indians and Their Tribes (Puffin 1997). Mr. Pevar has litigated a number of cases in the field of Indian rights and has lectured extensively on the subject.
Stephen L. Pevar
American Civil Liberties Union
2074 Park Street
Hartford, CT 06106
Tel: 860/570-9830
Fax: 860/570-9840
