Suzan Harjo. Photo: U.S. National Archives
Suzan Shown Harjo Delivers the 9th Annual Peter A. Jaszi Distinguished Lecture on Intellectual Property
OCTOBER 1, 2020 | 6:00PM
Registration (Required)
A link to attend the event will be sent when you register
Suzan Shown Harjo is President of the Morning Star Institute, an advocacy group she founded in 1984 for Native culture and education. Her name is most often associated with the successful trademark cancellation proceeding against the Washington football franchise, a request she initiated in 1992, but saw tied up in federal courts for over two decades. Despite the recent notoriety of that particular issue, she had worked steadfastly for many years trying to convince the larger world of professional and scholastic sports to renounce the use of team names, mascots and imagery promoting negative stereotypes of Native Americans.
Harjo’s meritorious good works and quest for Native justice go well beyond those efforts. Over her long career she has worked to preserve and protect Native sacred places, human remains, tribal sovereignty and cultural property. Suzan was the driving force behind most of the important laws protecting Native American cultures and arts including the 1996 Executive Order on Indian Sacred Sites, the 1990 Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act, the 1989 National Museum of the American Indian Act, and the 1978 American Indian Religious Freedom Act. She served as executive director of the National Congress of American Indians from 1984-1989 and continues to serve as co-chair of their subcommittee on Human, Religious, and Cultural Concerns. She was also a founder of the National Museum of the American Indian and guest curator of the museum’s current exhibit Nation to Nation: Treaties Between the United States and American Indian Nations. She is also a prolific writer, poet, and accomplished scholar.
Harjo was awarded the Presidential Medal of Honor – the nation’s highest civilian honor – in 2014.
Registration now open for @AUWCL Jaszi Distinguished Lecture on IP featuring Suzan Shown Harjo, leader of #NativeJustice #trademark proceeding against #WashingtonFootballTeam. RSVP https://t.co/j3tcqMfO35
— PIJIP (@WCL_PIJIP) September 7, 2020
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