UA News

The American Indian Studies Program announces the inaugural lecture in the 2010 fall Vine Deloria Jr. Indigenous Scholars Series, by professor and former Chief Justice of the Navajo Nation, Raymond D. Austin.

Austin is a Distinguished Jurist in Residence for the Indigenous Peoples Law and Policy Program at the University of Arizona James E. Rogers College of Law. He received degrees from Arizona State University and the University of New Mexico Law School and has a doctorate from the UA American Indian Studies Program.

Austin is a member of the Navajo Nation, Arizona and Utah bar associations. He served on the Navajo Nation Supreme Court  from 1985-2001 as judge pro tempore on the Arizona Court of Appeals Division (1993-1994) and as solicitor to the Pascua Yaqui Tribe Court of Appeals (2005-2007). Austin has taught seminars on Indian law, tribal law and judicial systems to state bar members of Arizona, Utah, New Mexico and other legal associations. He served as the Herman Phleger Distinguished Visiting Professor of Law at the Stanford Law School in 1995 and as a visiting professor at Harvard Law School, ASU College of Law and the University Of Utah College Of Law.

Austin has served on the boards of the National Indian Justice Center, American Indian Court Judges Association and the Advisory Council on Indian Legal Programs at the ASU College of Law. His award-winning book, "Navajo Courths and Navajo Common Law, a Tradition of Tribal Self-Governance," was published by the University of Minnesota Press.

A reception will follow the talk.