An 8-year-old watching the news sees her aunt and uncle come out of court happy about winning a suit against the sheriff’s department for battery and realizes what she wants to do with her life.

“I realized that it’s the way to get justice and that I wanted to be a lawyer,” said Angelique EagleWoman, associate professor of law.

EagleWoman, Wambdi A. WasteWin, is a member of the Sisseton-Wahpeton (Dakota) Oyate.

She accepted the position at University of Idaho College of Law in spring 2008 and was introduced at the ninth annual Tutxinmepu Powwow.

“I was looking for a school to build a native law program,” EagleWoman said. “I love that the school is close to the Nez Perce and Coeur d’Alene tribes.”

She began teaching at the UI College of Law this fall with classes in Indian Law and Introduction to Law and Procedure.

She has also cross-listed her Indian Law class with American Indian Studies so that undergraduates may take the class on a pass/fail basis.

“We’re moving to make the cross-listing permanent,” said Rodney Frey, professor of anthropology and American Indian studies. “Undergrads were always able to take law classes but now it’s more public.”

EagleWoman grew up splitting her time between Topeka, Kan. and Sisseton-Wahpeton Dakota Oyate of the Lake Traverse Reservation, S.D.

After high school she went to Northfield Mount Hermon for a year before attending Stanford and getting her B.A. in political science. With no American Indian Studies department EagleWoman was directed to the anthropology department for her thesis on American Indian courts.

“I was discouraged by the lack of education on tribes and I put off law school and returned to the reservation,” she said.

EagleWoman spent two years at Spirit Lake Reservation, N.D. as a truancy officer. She started teaching Indian law at Little Hoop Community College.

“I became a counselor and realized that I was not following my dreams,” EagleWoman said. “So I applied to the University of North Dakota for law in the fall of 1995.”

She graduated with her law degree in the spring of 1998, and was very involved in the mascot issue. EagleWoman saw it as an educational barrier for American Indians.

During law school, Eaglewoman had the opportunity to intern with Sonosky, Chambers, Sachse, and Endreson her first and second year in Washington, D.C. as a law clerk. EagleWoman was offered a position within the firm after she passed the North Dakota and South Dakota bar exams.

EagleWoman had the opportunity to assist with a treaty rights case, Mille Lacs v. Minnesota — a case about the Mille Lacs band of Chippewas’ right to hunt and fish on traditional lands.

Growing homesick, she left Washington, D.C., for her home reservation.

“I was tired of practicing Indian law where the confines are narrow, and I was led back to teaching,” she said.

She was with Upward Bound for four and a half years before accepting a position as General Council for her tribe in January 2000.

“Tribal politics were hard to deal with so I left with a plan to get my Master at Law,” Eaglewoman said.

She worked with Hobbs, Straus, Dean and Walker in Oklahoma City on tribal issues before returning to school in 2004 to get her Masters at Law at the University of Tulsa College of Law in American Indian and Indigenous Law.

In the fall of 2006, EagleWoman accepted a joint visitorship with Hamline University School of Law in St. Paul, Minn. and University of Kansas School of Law, Indigenous Nations Program in Lawrence, Kan.

EagleWoman is teaching the Indian law course as two topics: original tribes and U.S. Indian law and policy. The area of American Indian law requires law students to grasp two distinct bodies of law. Tribal attorneys must be versed in every area of law.

“As a tribal attorney, we’re a jack of all trades and a master of one,” EagleWoman said. “I always talked about being a walking encyclopedia of tribal history, tribal law, state and federal law, and international indigenous law.”

She said she wants to encourage American Indians to enter the field of law because she was always encouraged to go into law. Her grandmother served 10 years as a Chief Tribal Judge and was not law trained.

“She’s really hit the ground running, she’s engaged with students and will have a positive impact on native studies,” Frey said.

EagleWoman will serve as the keynote speaker at the Native American Distinguished Speaker Series in November.

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