Big Red Talks - Katie Brossy

University Communication Author

11/10/2017 Added

44 Plays

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Katie Brossy earned her bachelor's degree in sociology from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln in 2001 and her J.D. from Columbia Law School in 2005.

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[00:00:00.196](applause)
[00:00:03.529]Thanks for coming out.
[00:00:04.887]I understand everyone's in the midst of tests,
[00:00:07.362]I remember how that was, it's hard to get out,
[00:00:09.921]so I appreciate all of you being here tonight.
[00:00:12.717]It's wonderful to be back.
[00:00:14.135]It's hard to believe that it's been
[00:00:16.193]20 years since I started at UNL.
[00:00:18.850]I graduated high school from Lincoln Southeast in 1997,
[00:00:23.518]and started as a freshman here at UNL in 1997.
[00:00:27.409]20 years seems like a long time to me,
[00:00:30.458]although in some ways it seems like just yesterday.
[00:00:33.415]I know a lot has changed here at the university,
[00:00:36.331]and when my mom and I were coming up here
[00:00:38.234]we had to ask for directions on how
[00:00:39.848]to find this because the auditorium wasn't here
[00:00:42.344]back when I was a student here.
[00:00:44.265]I have a lot of wonderful, fond memories
[00:00:47.206]of being here at the university.
[00:00:50.628]Today, before I start, I have a
[00:00:52.484]little disclaimer for all of you.
[00:00:54.313]I've been on maternity leave for the last three months.
[00:00:57.374]I had a baby in August, so I've been a little bit
[00:01:00.448]in mom mode, so hopefully you can cut me some slack.
[00:01:04.401]I haven't been working, I still have one more month
[00:01:06.681]of maternity leave until I go back.
[00:01:08.954]I might be a little bit rusty, so hopefully
[00:01:10.772]you'll bear with me in that.
[00:01:13.329]Tonight, I want to just give you a little bit
[00:01:15.961]of my story about where I come from,
[00:01:20.167]how I got to where I am today, the type of work that I do,
[00:01:24.200]and then I'd like to be able to share some stories with you
[00:01:27.104]about how much my experiences here at UNL, I feel like
[00:01:31.064]really shaped my career path and gave me a really strong
[00:01:35.680]foundation for the work that I'm able to do today.
[00:01:39.721]With that being said, as Lauren mentioned I am a member
[00:01:43.766]of the Ponca tribe of Nebraska, I am also Santee Sioux,
[00:01:47.967]I descend from Chief Smoke Maker from the Ponca tribe
[00:01:51.378]and my great-grandfather was the last chief
[00:01:54.319]of the second rank of the Ponca tribe.
[00:01:57.558]My grandmother served on our tribal council,
[00:02:00.565]and my aunt served on our tribal council,
[00:02:03.194]and my mother has been the executive director
[00:02:05.719]of the Nebraskan Indian Commission for the last 22 years.
[00:02:08.597]So I have a strong history of tribal leadership
[00:02:11.462]in my family, and I feel like one of the most important
[00:02:15.544]things is knowing where you come from in order
[00:02:17.746]to help you see where you can go in life.
[00:02:20.938]So I'm very fortunate to still have strong ties
[00:02:24.058]to my family and to my community.
[00:02:27.037]It was wonderful to be able to come back here to UNL.
[00:02:30.502]I also have a four-year-old son,
[00:02:32.837]and so it's always good to come back
[00:02:34.869]and see Grandma and our family.
[00:02:36.827]It's great, I could mix business and pleasure here as well.
[00:02:41.729]My son's four, he's very talkative,
[00:02:43.554]very outgoing, and I asked him, I said,
[00:02:45.677]What should Mommy talk about at this talk?
[00:02:47.735]And he said, well, you should talk about caring about
[00:02:52.487]Mother Earth, you should talk about Chief Standing Bear,
[00:02:55.988]which I'll do later, and you should talk about Indians,
[00:02:59.786]and then more Indians (chuckles).
[00:03:01.428]So I'm clearly teaching him a lot at home.
[00:03:04.065]He also has strong political views, so we may watch
[00:03:06.346]a little bit of too much CNN at home.
[00:03:09.141]I'll try not to bring any of
[00:03:10.399]my political views here tonight.
[00:03:12.454]But those were his recommendations so I will try and work
[00:03:15.459]that a little bit into my speech as well.
[00:03:21.254]I mentioned that I graduated from Lincoln Southeast.
[00:03:25.032]I actually noticed one of my eighth-grade teachers
[00:03:27.795]is here in the audience, Mr. Nelson, so I want to give
[00:03:30.673]a little shout-out to him, it's wonderful to see him here.
[00:03:34.421]I graduated from Lincoln Southeast in '97,
[00:03:37.657]and I started here in '97,
[00:03:41.199]and then graduated in 2001.
[00:03:45.333]And I always knew that I wanted to do
[00:03:47.586]some type of work with native people.
[00:03:50.046]Obviously I had a lot of members in my family as I mentioned
[00:03:53.236]that had been involved in tribal issues.
[00:03:56.902]And I thought that the path that I would go down
[00:03:59.025]would be social work, so I majored in sociology,
[00:04:02.187]I had a minor in Spanish, I had a minor in Native American
[00:04:05.540]Studies, and I took a lot of sociology classes.
[00:04:09.917]But one of the classes that I took, I think it was the end
[00:04:13.616]of my junior year, was a constitutional law class with
[00:04:16.938]Professor Combs, and I have to say that that was really
[00:04:20.828]I think a defining moment in my life.
[00:04:23.513]As you're going through, you're all young and you may not
[00:04:27.228]even realize this as you're a student now,
[00:04:29.589]but when you look back on things you remember what were
[00:04:33.361]some defining moments in your life.
[00:04:35.020]And I think taking that constitutional law class,
[00:04:37.560]which wasn't really within my major,
[00:04:40.073]was something that opened my eyes up to what the law could
[00:04:42.739]mean for everyone, and especially for native people,
[00:04:46.208]on a day-to-day basis.
[00:04:49.576]When I took the constitutional law class,
[00:04:50.882]I started to think, okay, maybe I should pursue law school.
[00:04:58.449]I didn't really know what that entailed,
[00:05:00.884]but I had a lot of strong, support system,
[00:05:03.621]and professors that really encouraged me to pursue law.
[00:05:08.755]So I started studying for the LSAT,
[00:05:12.171]I talked to one of the students earlier,
[00:05:14.246]she's getting ready to take the LSAT,
[00:05:16.189]and I studied for the LSAT, I took that,
[00:05:19.167]and then I went to this program down in New Mexico,
[00:05:22.180]it's called the Pre-Law Summer Institute.
[00:05:24.649]I don't know if there's any native students in the audience
[00:05:26.630]but it's a program for native students,
[00:05:29.395]and it's been going on for 40 years,
[00:05:31.991]we just had the 40-year anniversary of the program,
[00:05:35.050]and it's intended to help recreate your first semester,
[00:05:39.128]first year of law school in a short eight-week period
[00:05:42.330]down in New Mexico at the university.
[00:05:44.594]You have real law school professors,
[00:05:48.034]you take real law school classes,
[00:05:49.930]you take midterms, final exams, all of that.
[00:05:54.207]And that was, in addition to taking the constitutional
[00:05:57.681]law class, my experience taking or participating
[00:06:02.764]in the Pre-Law Summer Institute, was by far
[00:06:05.690]another defining moment that I didn't necessarily even know
[00:06:10.282]was even happening at the time.
[00:06:12.323]While I was there, I did well in the program, studied hard,
[00:06:16.394]law school's stressful and hard, and so them putting
[00:06:20.550]that into an eight-week program was pretty intense.
[00:06:24.221]I met a lot of great other native students there,
[00:06:26.680]and we were all a great support system to each other.
[00:06:29.430]But what was really important about the program
[00:06:32.499]was that different law schools would come down there
[00:06:35.135]to recruit native students to their programs.
[00:06:38.037]So while I was there, I interviewed with
[00:06:40.690]Columbia Law School, Cornell, Georgetown, GW,
[00:06:45.240]and the University of Washington in St. Louis.
[00:06:47.747]And I was admitted to all of those programs.
[00:06:50.486]The only catch was that the program ended
[00:06:53.513]at the very beginning of August,
[00:06:55.553]and school started in about two weeks after that.
[00:06:58.737]So I had to make a really quick decision.
[00:07:00.816]Was I going to leave Nebraska and my home, my family,
[00:07:04.574]I'd never left home except to go to this Pre-Law Summer
[00:07:07.145]Institute down in New Mexico.
[00:07:09.733]Was I gonna take a risk and go somewhere else?
[00:07:15.346]I just didn't know if I had the strength to do that.
[00:07:18.518]But I talked it over with my family, and we decided
[00:07:21.844]that Columbia was a great opportunity for me to do.
[00:07:26.864]I was the first member of my tribe to ever go to law school,
[00:07:30.196]as far as I know, that's what I've been told.
[00:07:32.708]And the first person to graduate from law school.
[00:07:34.888]So I went to Columbia, which, if you're familiar with it,
[00:07:37.602]it's in New York City, it's right up near Harlem,
[00:07:39.854]it's like five blocks south of Harlem.
[00:07:42.591]And to say it was a culture shock is,
[00:07:46.758]I'm not exaggerating, it was really crazy showing up.
[00:07:50.938]I had a hundred dollars in my pocket,
[00:07:53.417]and nowhere to live because it was
[00:07:54.801]such short notice to go there.
[00:07:57.037]The university was still trying to find me housing.
[00:08:00.767]Luckily there were two other native students that were
[00:08:02.887]there already, and one of them was kind enough to let me
[00:08:06.779]stay at his place, and his name was Jossy.
[00:08:09.664]Well, I told my mom, I'm gonna be staying with Jossy,
[00:08:13.246]when I get there he'll pick me up.
[00:08:15.655]She thought Jossy was Josie, a girl.
[00:08:18.542]Turns out it's a six-foot-five native guy,
[00:08:21.352]and I was gonna be staying in his apartment.
[00:08:24.175]So she was a little bit shocked about that
[00:08:25.436]once he showed up.
[00:08:26.809]And he didn't pick me up at the airport, I just had to
[00:08:28.422]get a cab at LaGuardia and go to his apartment
[00:08:30.787]and it was really overwhelming.
[00:08:34.418]Luckily, there was one other student that had gone
[00:08:36.440]to the Pre-Law Summer Institute with me, a Navajo student
[00:08:40.011]who we had become really good friends.
[00:08:42.277]And him and his wife were also coming to the program.
[00:08:44.989]I had a little bit of a support system,
[00:08:46.923]but it was a lot, and the people in Nebraska are just
[00:08:52.572]such wonderful, friendly, down-to-earth people,
[00:08:55.813]and New York City is quite different (chuckles).
[00:08:58.787]And law students in general are quite different.
[00:09:01.539]I think everyone's used to being the top of their class,
[00:09:05.130]or go-getters, very typically Type A personalities,
[00:09:09.570]and so when I got there and met all these people,
[00:09:12.471]I just thought, I don't know if I belong here.
[00:09:15.618]And I remember calling up my mom,
[00:09:18.222]it was the first week when classes had started,
[00:09:21.463]and I was crying, and I said, I don't know if I can do this.
[00:09:26.019]And she said, I know you can do this.
[00:09:30.591]But if you want to come home, we understand that too.
[00:09:33.889]But I stuck it out, and I thought, my tribe, my people,
[00:09:38.507]we were forcibly removed from Nebraska all the way down
[00:09:42.128]to Oklahoma in the late 1800s.
[00:09:44.120]They walked 500 miles in the cold, and 500 miles back
[00:09:47.196]in the cold, and if they could do that,
[00:09:50.137]I could go to law school in New York City for a few years.
[00:09:53.251]And I did, and it was very hard, I don't know if there's
[00:09:57.156]any current law students in the audience today.
[00:10:01.339]But I think what they say is the first year
[00:10:04.061]of law school, they scare you to death,
[00:10:06.383]the second year they work you to death,
[00:10:07.770]and the third year they bore you to death.
[00:10:09.655]So the first year definitely scared me.
[00:10:11.842]It's a lot of work, a lot of reading.
[00:10:14.831]You've got 20 to 30 pages of reading per class per night.
[00:10:19.413]They teach the Socratic method where the professor's gonna
[00:10:23.459]call, they'll pick someone out of the audience,
[00:10:25.287]you have no idea who's gonna be picked,
[00:10:27.375]and they'll just sit there and hound you for,
[00:10:29.859]could be the whole class, could be 10 minutes,
[00:10:31.460]could be one minute, you never know.
[00:10:35.553]It was stressful and it was a lot of work.
[00:10:38.472]But by the end of my first year, I had met a lot of people
[00:10:42.011]that I felt were really supportive,
[00:10:45.878]a great group of friends.
[00:10:47.858]And by the second year, I was busy on the human rights
[00:10:51.325]law review and I had worked over the summer
[00:10:55.118]at a small boutique firm in DC practicing Indian law.
[00:10:59.361]So I was feeling like I was getting my wits about me,
[00:11:02.538]and I was feeling a little bit more confident about things.
[00:11:06.156]By second year, it was true, they definitely worked you
[00:11:09.662]worked you to death, and you had a lot more work.
[00:11:12.729]And then by the third year, it was a little bit,
[00:11:15.247]you really kind of knew what you were doing.
[00:11:18.258]Typically in law school, most people, their summer between
[00:11:21.681]their second and third year, they'll work somewhere
[00:11:24.660]and then they'll get an offer after that
[00:11:26.485]to then go work once you graduate.
[00:11:29.937]And I had worked at this small boutique firm
[00:11:31.993]called Sonosky Chambers in DC.
[00:11:34.266]I'd worked there the summer after my first, my 1L year,
[00:11:37.018]and then the summer after my 2L year.
[00:11:39.121]And they gave me an offer to work there after graduation.
[00:11:43.468]I'd also worked at this other law firm called
[00:11:45.051]Hughes, Hubbard and Reed, which is
[00:11:46.470]a huge law firm in New York City.
[00:11:49.082]And they did a small bit of Indian law,
[00:11:51.193]but they couldn't guarantee that I was going to be able
[00:11:53.820]to work on that full-time.
[00:11:55.483]So I said, okay, I'm going to DC and I'm gonna work
[00:11:59.492]at this firm that just does Indian law.
[00:12:01.950]And it was a wonderful, wonderful firm,
[00:12:04.668]I worked there for about a year and a half,
[00:12:07.493]and then I had the opportunity to move over
[00:12:11.109]to the current firm where I'm at right now,
[00:12:13.412]which is Akin Gump Strauss Hauer and Feld.
[00:12:17.632]It's a huge firm in Washington, DC.
[00:12:20.800]We have offices all over the country,
[00:12:24.049]and all over the world, actually.
[00:12:25.591]We originally started out in Texas,
[00:12:27.350]but our DC office is one of our largest.
[00:12:31.068]I'm in the larger public law and policy group,
[00:12:34.047]which is the largest lobbying shop in DC.
[00:12:37.164]And then within that is the American
[00:12:39.039]Indian law and policy group.
[00:12:41.036]There's about eight to 10 of us, we have two consultants
[00:12:44.158]that live out in Arizona, and we do work on behalf
[00:12:48.216]of tribes and tribal enterprises and different
[00:12:51.579]tribal entities, mostly tribal governments.
[00:12:55.509]One of our biggest clients is the Gila River Indian
[00:12:57.964]Community down in Arizona,
[00:13:00.204]and we've been working for them for about 20 years now.
[00:13:07.003]And we passed their Indian water settlement back in 2004,
[00:13:11.318]that was before I had gotten over there.
[00:13:14.808]They were kind of the biggest tribal client that we
[00:13:17.179]started with, and then as the years progressed,
[00:13:19.408]we developed other clients.
[00:13:21.466]Now we have clients in California, we had some
[00:13:24.249]in Montana, Oklahoma, New York, Maine,
[00:13:30.126]Arizona as I mentioned, all over the country,
[00:13:33.880]Alaska, we represent tribes from everywhere.
[00:13:38.030]I feel very fortunate to work in this group
[00:13:40.898]because it's the largest lobbying shop in DC,
[00:13:43.866]so we have a lot of bipartisan representation
[00:13:47.189]we've got the Democrats and the Republicans,
[00:13:49.255]so we're really well-positioned to represent
[00:13:52.069]any type of issue that could come up.
[00:13:54.376]With Indian law, it's a kind of
[00:13:58.326]a little bit of everything.
[00:13:59.976]It's not just lobbying that we do, we do litigation,
[00:14:02.614]we do administrative work, we do a lot of lobbying.
[00:14:06.793]I have to register as a lobbyist and wear the scarlet L.
[00:14:10.559]But we do a little bit of everything, which is nice.
[00:14:17.249]I'll go into that a little bit more, but before I bore
[00:14:21.022]you guys to tears with my story, I'm gonna walk around
[00:14:23.797]a little bit and break things up and do a short little
[00:14:25.862]quiz, and you're not gonna get graded here, but if you think
[00:14:29.359]you know the answer you can shout it out,
[00:14:31.241]and if not, I'll tell you.
[00:14:32.112]It's just a few questions, just to kind of
[00:14:33.676]mix things up a little bit.
[00:14:36.335]How many federally recognized Indian tribes
[00:14:38.545]do you think there are in the United States?
[00:14:40.317]Does anyone have a guess?
[00:14:45.031]300.
[00:14:46.593]More. Five.
[00:14:48.364]A little bit more. 567 are federally recognized tribes.
[00:14:53.941]Now that's not state-recognized tribes.
[00:14:55.863]There's also state-recognized tribes that haven't been
[00:14:58.975]recognized either historically, or they haven't gone
[00:15:02.190]through the process to get federally recognized.
[00:15:04.512]A lot of those are small villages in Alaska.
[00:15:07.155]So that includes Alaska and then the lower 48.
[00:15:10.705]So 567, that's a new thing.
[00:15:13.100]All right, does anyone know how many tribes are located,
[00:15:16.001]are headquartered here in Nebraska?
[00:15:21.905]Close, there's four, there's the Ponca tribe, there is
[00:15:25.230]the Omaha tribe, the Winnebago and the Santee Sioux.
[00:15:28.864]But I was asking my mom earlier and I said well how many
[00:15:31.170]tribes were historically here in Nebraska?
[00:15:32.760]And I didn't even know the answer to that, which I should.
[00:15:35.202]I think we said there were 28?
[00:15:38.285]27, 27, so 27 tribes were traditionally here in Nebraska,
[00:15:42.793]which was something new that I had learned.
[00:15:46.053]One more question, do you know when
[00:15:48.461]Native Americans become citizens?
[00:15:51.661]Anyone know the date?
[00:15:54.300]1924. Very good, yes.
[00:15:56.452]The Citizenship Act of 1924 (laughs).
[00:15:59.454]My high school professor knew the answer
[00:16:01.060]to that, so that's fitting.
[00:16:03.746]That was just a little, I just wanted to kind of give you
[00:16:06.561]a little, a few questions to think about.
[00:16:10.563]Things that we may not necessarily know the answer to,
[00:16:14.046]and I think it's always good to ask questions,
[00:16:18.644]and think outside the box, and learn more about your
[00:16:22.213]surroundings here and what's going on in Nebraska.
[00:16:29.666]We did the quiz, I'll go back to
[00:16:31.987]a little bit more about what I do.
[00:16:34.293]My clients typically refer to me as a water nerd or a water
[00:16:37.680]geek, and I take that with all honors as could be,
[00:16:42.901]because I mainly do tribal water law.
[00:16:46.894]A lot of people say, well what does that entail?
[00:16:48.465]What is tribal water law?
[00:16:50.663]It usually entails some type of lawsuit that started
[00:16:54.766]many, many years, ago, decades ago.
[00:16:58.287]It involves, the United States has a trust responsibility
[00:17:01.908]to Indian tribes and when reservations were created,
[00:17:05.597]there was the premise that, along with that creation
[00:17:08.490]of the reservation, that you would have enough water
[00:17:11.023]to provide for your homeland now and into the future.
[00:17:14.388]The problem is, throughout these years,
[00:17:16.650]a lot of other entities, states, local governments,
[00:17:20.688]individuals, they took the water that was supposed to be
[00:17:24.992]protected by the United States on behalf
[00:17:27.055]of the Indian tribes.
[00:17:28.686]There's a very unique status that tribes
[00:17:30.677]in the United States hold, the United States has a trust
[00:17:35.122]responsibility to Indian tribes, and this dates back
[00:17:37.856]to decades, hundreds of years ago of legal precedent.
[00:17:43.090]As part of that is this water law
[00:17:45.690]trust responsibility to provide enough water.
[00:17:49.686]It starts out usually in litigation, where a tribe has
[00:17:52.603]not been able to get their water rights, or they want
[00:17:56.103]to clarify their water rights, once and for all.
[00:17:59.677]As I mentioned, we had done work for the Gila River Indian
[00:18:02.793]Community in 2004, to get their Indian water settlement.
[00:18:07.474]It involved, I think, over 22 different parties.
[00:18:11.735]States, local communities, the tribe, other tribes,
[00:18:16.542]and they ended up with 653,000 acre-feet of water.
[00:18:20.763]So, what is an acre-foot of water?
[00:18:22.542]It's enough to be able to irrigate an acre of land.
[00:18:28.851]So in Arizona, which, if you're familiar with Arizona,
[00:18:31.415]that is a very dry state, and water is like gold.
[00:18:36.238]The community has been able to use that water settlement
[00:18:39.715]that they passed in 2004, to really help grow
[00:18:42.600]their economic development.
[00:18:45.859]I know a lot of people, when they think of Indian tribes,
[00:18:47.708]what's the first things that pops into their mind?
[00:18:49.906]Gaming, we have Indian casinos.
[00:18:53.036]We don't have any here, well we do have some in here
[00:18:55.469]in Nebraska but not the big, what we call Class Three gaming
[00:18:59.666]that you would in see Vegas, like the table games.
[00:19:02.144]We do have Omaha and Winnebago have Class Two facilities.
[00:19:06.224]But most people think of Indian tribes and they think
[00:19:08.707]of Indian gaming, and we certainly do a lot of that work.
[00:19:11.715]But Indian water rights have really been a place
[00:19:14.671]where tribes have been able to take control of their
[00:19:18.609]water resources, like the Gila River Indian Community,
[00:19:22.239]and build that into an economic development,
[00:19:26.734]where they're able to market their water, they're able
[00:19:29.314]to come up with new agreements with their local communities
[00:19:33.232]to sell the water, and so it's really been a great way
[00:19:36.594]to diversify their economic opportunities.
[00:19:40.076]Now if I were to tell you that there was a place where
[00:19:43.185]you have to haul your water for miles away,
[00:19:47.522]then once you get the water to your place,
[00:19:49.748]you have to boil it before you're able to drink it,
[00:19:52.290]I doubt that you'd think we're talking about
[00:19:54.015]somewhere here in the United States.
[00:19:55.575]But, sadly, that is the case for a lot of Indian tribes.
[00:19:59.437]One of the tribes that I worked on, that was mentioned
[00:20:02.252]in my bio, was one of the largest Indian water settlements
[00:20:05.131]was the Crow water settlement,
[00:20:06.172]and they're located in Montana.
[00:20:08.049]There's tons of water in Montana, it's not like Arizona
[00:20:10.899]or California where you're having
[00:20:12.265]this scarce supply of this resource.
[00:20:15.743]But they had still been, the United States had failed
[00:20:20.160]to protect their water, and as a result, they had
[00:20:23.034]to haul the water, and they had to boil the water
[00:20:26.093]in order for it to really be able to be drinkable.
[00:20:30.641]Not only that, but they
[00:20:35.316]had never had a clean drinking water system
[00:20:37.657]that was across the whole reservation.
[00:20:40.584]So we started working for the tribe,
[00:20:42.483]their settlement started in litigation similarly,
[00:20:45.204]back decades ago, and they were able to come
[00:20:47.801]to an agreement with the State of Montana in 1999.
[00:20:50.906]We started representing them in 2007.
[00:20:54.965]The way that an Indian water settlement typically works,
[00:20:57.840]is that you start out in litigation, and then you try
[00:21:00.581]to settle the litigation with the United States.
[00:21:03.025]As I mentioned, they have this trust responsibility.
[00:21:04.845]So in exchange for us waiving our claims,
[00:21:08.748]the tribe waiving their claims against the United States,
[00:21:11.242]the United States provides a monetary contribution
[00:21:14.406]through legislation, that then allows the tribe
[00:21:18.035]to get what we call wet water.
[00:21:20.036]There have been some tribes that have
[00:21:21.769]just litigated their water rights in court,
[00:21:25.291]and then that results what we call in a paper water right.
[00:21:28.337]So you have a piece of paper that says I have,
[00:21:32.284]this tribe has an amount of water that is confirmed
[00:21:36.166]and quantified, but they don't have any way to,
[00:21:39.977]they have no funds, or no means to be able
[00:21:41.873]to get the wet water, they just have this paper.
[00:21:45.989]In comparison, if you settle the litigation
[00:21:50.438]and then you get a piece of legislation through Congress,
[00:21:54.198]then you have this wet water and you have funds that
[00:21:56.145]the United States has provided that allows you
[00:21:58.359]to actually bring water to the tribal communities.
[00:22:02.046]And that's what we did the the Crow water settlement.
[00:22:03.835]We passed that in 2010, and if you follow politics,
[00:22:06.910]not a lot gets done out in DC, it is very difficult
[00:22:09.699]to get anything passed in Congress, let alone
[00:22:12.486]a 460 million dollar water settlement for an Indian tribe.
[00:22:17.237]We packaged our Indian water settlement up with three
[00:22:20.086]other Indian water settlements in this larger
[00:22:23.325]trust accounting case called the Cobell settlement,
[00:22:26.383]that was more about individual Indians
[00:22:28.971]and the United States' failure to take account of their,
[00:22:34.375]it's like a trust accounting, account for the money
[00:22:36.442]that they were supposed to be handling
[00:22:37.833]on behalf of individual Indians.
[00:22:40.266]So we packaged that all up together, it was over
[00:22:42.469]a billion dollars, and we passed that in 2010.
[00:22:45.732]Ever since then, we were in the process of implementing
[00:22:49.334]the water settlement, so anyone thinking about going
[00:22:51.569]to law school, I certainly did not set out to be
[00:22:54.848]a water lawyer, but it has great job security
[00:22:59.461]because these water settlements take forever (chuckles).
[00:23:01.785]You have to litigate them, then you settle them,
[00:23:04.284]then you implement them, so they literally take decades
[00:23:07.353]and decades of work, and there's not that many people
[00:23:09.194]that practice Indian water law, so you
[00:23:11.834]have a lot of opportunities there.
[00:23:13.394]I would recommend that you keep an open mind.
[00:23:14.712]Water law is very interesting, it's not boring.
[00:23:19.300]And so with the Crow water settlement it was 460 million
[00:23:23.233]dollars, and over 200 million of that was to create
[00:23:27.091]a clean drinking water system for the first time
[00:23:29.090]on the reservation, there's was 130 million of it
[00:23:32.454]that was to rehabilitate their irrigation system,
[00:23:36.040]and then there were funds for energy projects, and then
[00:23:39.640]up keeping, so let's say you create this clean drinking
[00:23:43.207]water system, and you have an irrigation system,
[00:23:45.239]over time it starts to fall apart, you need operation,
[00:23:49.288]maintenance and repair costs,
[00:23:50.715]so there's also funding in there
[00:23:51.907]to keep the systems running.
[00:23:54.412]And we were able to get through the majority
[00:23:58.576]of the requirements just this last year,
[00:24:02.363]and then for the next probably ten years they'll be
[00:24:05.291]in the process of building and constructing the clean
[00:24:08.547]drinking water system and the irrigation system.
[00:24:12.580]I also recently worked on another Indian water settlement
[00:24:15.458]on behalf of the Pechanga Band of Luiseno Indians.
[00:24:18.038]They're located in southern California, which,
[00:24:20.793]unlike Montana, not very much water down there.
[00:24:24.566]They're located a little bit outside of San Diego.
[00:24:28.331]We were able to pass their water settlement,
[00:24:30.377]it had been pending in Congress since 2008,
[00:24:34.065]and we passed it on the very last day of Congress.
[00:24:37.594]And it was only, I say only,
[00:24:39.492]but in terms of these water settlements are,
[00:24:41.202]it was only 28.5 million, so that's teeny tiny
[00:24:43.502]compared to some of these others that are 460 million
[00:24:47.307]or what not, and it only called for 4,000 acre-feet
[00:24:52.216]of water, in comparison to the Gila River one
[00:24:55.860]that was 653,000, and the Crow water settlement
[00:25:00.062]was 800,000 acre-feet of water.
[00:25:03.430]The Pechanga one, you would think, 4,000 acre-feet of water,
[00:25:06.625]28.5 million, oh it should be a breeze.
[00:25:09.883]Sadly that isn't the case, it isn't how things work
[00:25:11.828]out in DC, and there's a lot of, it takes a lot
[00:25:15.934]to get a piece of legislation passed.
[00:25:18.091]But we got it done, like I said on the very last
[00:25:20.572]day of Congress, and we've been in the midst of doing
[00:25:25.442]all the implementation work on that one, as well.
[00:25:29.144]That's kind of really, the last two Indian water settlements
[00:25:33.717]that I've worked on, and we'll be doing a lot of the
[00:25:37.508]implementation for Pechanga in the years to come.
[00:25:41.644]Hopefully a little bit quicker than we had to do with Crow
[00:25:43.617]just because of the size element of it.
[00:25:51.352]I think that's all I was really gonna say about water law.
[00:25:56.108]So that probably brings me to how did my experiences
[00:25:58.982]here at UNL shape where I ended up,
[00:26:02.334]and how did it create a foundation for me
[00:26:05.454]of getting me to where I am today.
[00:26:08.136]I know we all have different paths,
[00:26:09.479]different journeys, how we get somewhere.
[00:26:13.011]My mom always likes to say showing up is
[00:26:14.911]half the battle or more than half the battle.
[00:26:18.376]So all of you that showed up, thanks,
[00:26:19.852]you're on your way through the battle.
[00:26:23.704]One thing I did was I was a member of Alpha Chi Omega
[00:26:26.742]sorority when I was here,
[00:26:28.253]and I was the first member of my family
[00:26:29.769]to ever join the sorority or the Greek system.
[00:26:33.001]That was, it was, I didn't know what
[00:26:36.384]to expect joining a sorority.
[00:26:38.201]I was the only Native American student
[00:26:41.697]that I know of that was in the sorority at the time,
[00:26:45.034]and I know there is a Native American sorority
[00:26:46.958]that I don't believe they, I don't know
[00:26:48.366]if they have a chapter here at UNL,
[00:26:49.717]they didn't have a chapter here when I was here.
[00:26:52.651]But I joined Alpha Chi Omega in my freshman year,
[00:26:56.134]and then by your sophomore year you move into the sorority
[00:26:58.681]and it's the first time you live with 50 other women.
[00:27:01.223]Well that in itself is a huge experience and something
[00:27:05.899]that helps you grow, to learn how to work with other people,
[00:27:09.978]and negotiate different things.
[00:27:11.784]So I think living with 50 other women, that was,
[00:27:14.856]really helped build a strong foundation.
[00:27:17.397]The other thing that I'll say that I think really helped me
[00:27:20.286]was running for an office in the sorority.
[00:27:25.438]The way the elections would work is,
[00:27:27.229]you'd have to get up in front of 100 of your friends,
[00:27:31.684]and give a speech to be on the executive board,
[00:27:34.084]and back then I was petrified of doing public speaking.
[00:27:37.503]I remember getting up there and I was practically in tears,
[00:27:41.026]I was shaking, and it was terrible. I did a horrible job.
[00:27:44.926]Not to say that I'm great at public speaking now,
[00:27:48.792]but I have to do a lot of public speaking in my job.
[00:27:52.164]I'm not an attorney that's necessarily in the court room,
[00:27:54.820]but when we do these water settlements,
[00:27:55.945]we have to go out back to the tribal communities
[00:27:58.326]and explain to their membership
[00:28:00.012]what does this settlement mean to you.
[00:28:02.080]And with Crow, we had to have a majority of the tribal
[00:28:06.266]membership vote in favor of the water settlement
[00:28:09.710]so I had to go out to every single tribal community
[00:28:12.558]on the reservation, their reservation is 2.3 million acres
[00:28:16.912]wide there in Montana, and go to all the tribal communities
[00:28:20.872]and speak to them about here's what the water settlement
[00:28:23.448]does, here's what it doesn't do, there was a lot of gossip
[00:28:27.147]about, we're selling our water rights, this is terrible,
[00:28:31.219]we're giving our water rights away again.
[00:28:33.478]So we really had to do a lot education
[00:28:35.212]but I had to get up in front of all these tribal members,
[00:28:37.650]some of whom I know, but a lot of who I didn't,
[00:28:39.785]and a lot of them are angry, they weren't necessarily sure
[00:28:42.499]about what did this water settlement mean.
[00:28:45.024]So I think being in the sorority and having to speak
[00:28:49.285]in front of people was a great learning experience for me,
[00:28:53.711]and something that helped build a foundation.
[00:28:55.483]I would encourage all of you, if you're not in a sorority,
[00:28:58.864]if you're in some other type of organization that gives you
[00:29:01.988]the option or the opportunity to work
[00:29:03.612]on your public speaking skills, to take advantage of that.
[00:29:07.286]That was one thing that I really appreciated looking back
[00:29:10.220]on it, helped me to be where I am today,
[00:29:13.960]was being in Alpha Chi Omega,
[00:29:16.195]and then really having that strong sisterhood of support,
[00:29:20.236]but also just having to take risks to get out there
[00:29:22.925]and do things that you're not necessarily
[00:29:24.791]feel comfortable doing.
[00:29:27.026]Looking back, I probably should have prepared a lot more
[00:29:28.744]for my speeches and that would have helped me out more,
[00:29:31.295]but you know, hindsight is 20/20.
[00:29:35.225]The other thing that I did when I was at the university
[00:29:37.961]was I tried to do a wide variety of different jobs.
[00:29:41.490]Not necessarily a job that was going to pay the most money
[00:29:44.062]but something that was gonna not only give me experience
[00:29:46.689]but also really help build my resume.
[00:29:49.608]I remember thinking, I'm a Type A personality, okay,
[00:29:52.266]I'm thinking, what am I gonna do the next three steps ahead,
[00:29:56.254]and at that time I was thinking okay,
[00:29:57.737]I need to do this job, and I need to do that job,
[00:30:00.804]and I started working for my tribe,
[00:30:03.364]and that was a wonderful experience to get
[00:30:05.205]to know a lot of people in my community better,
[00:30:08.283]and to see what are the issues that
[00:30:10.385]are really affecting my people.
[00:30:12.278]I worked in our Lincoln office, which is right over
[00:30:14.111]on 17th and E, and for those of you
[00:30:17.668]that aren't familiar with the Ponca tribe,
[00:30:19.894]we were originally located near Niobrara in Nebraska,
[00:30:24.698]and we were terminated in the late 1960s
[00:30:28.947]and then restored by an act of Congress in 1990.
[00:30:32.008]So we really only been restored since 1990,
[00:30:34.686]and we were restored without a reservation.
[00:30:36.690]Most tribes have a reservation base,
[00:30:38.373]and the Ponca tribe does not have a reservation.
[00:30:41.539]One of the congressman, it was his requirement
[00:30:43.757]that in order to get this bill passed, that we'd have
[00:30:46.625]to have a specific provision in the Act
[00:30:48.532]that said no reservation land.
[00:30:50.269]We could have trusts land, taken on behalf of the tribe,
[00:30:53.371]but we could not have a reservation.
[00:30:54.745]So instead, we have what are called service sites
[00:30:56.729]where a large group of our tribal members live.
[00:30:59.882]So we have offices in Omaha, Lincoln, Norfolk, Carter Lake,
[00:31:07.451]and I may be forgetting one,
[00:31:10.657]we're kind of have these offices where a lot of our tribal
[00:31:15.299]members live, and I worked at the one here in Lincoln.
[00:31:17.369]So that was a great experience.
[00:31:18.506]Then I worked as a page for the Nebraska unicameral.
[00:31:21.852]And that was my first time that I really was involved
[00:31:28.261]in politics, or seeing what the political system was.
[00:31:31.202]And Nebraska's so unique that we have this unicameral
[00:31:33.233]system to begin with, which no other state has.
[00:31:36.381]But just to see how senators were
[00:31:40.781]approaching different bills, how they were working
[00:31:43.997]to gain support for their side,
[00:31:45.931]and having speeches on the floor,
[00:31:49.063]it was a real eye-opener to me to the political process.
[00:31:52.178]And I think that really sparked a lot of interest
[00:31:56.594]in pursuing that type of political work down the road,
[00:31:59.849]which is what a lot of what I do now, going to different
[00:32:03.378]fundraisers, meeting with members on the Hill
[00:32:05.984]on behalf of issues that I work on for my tribal clients.
[00:32:10.419]I loved being a page, I don't think it pays a whole lot,
[00:32:13.588]but if you're still in university now,
[00:32:15.699]being a page is a wonderful experience
[00:32:17.452]and I would highly, highly recommend it.
[00:32:20.751]The other place that I worked was, my senior year I worked
[00:32:23.890]for a law firm here in Lincoln called Cline Williams.
[00:32:28.219]And I was the legal runner, just running different
[00:32:30.533]errands around, sending, taking things to get filed
[00:32:33.727]in court, and that was a wonderful experience
[00:32:36.786]because I got to see what it really means
[00:32:38.533]to be a lawyer on a day-to-day basis.
[00:32:40.739]And I think we all have these ideas about,
[00:32:43.141]if you've seen shows on TV, The Good Wife,
[00:32:46.916]or Law and Order, or things like that where
[00:32:49.049]you're in the court room and you're doing these things.
[00:32:51.275]That's not necessarily a lot of the practice.
[00:32:53.388]That's the great thing about being a lawyer,
[00:32:55.538]I encourage all of you to consider pursing the law,
[00:32:58.604]because it's not just about being in the courtroom,
[00:33:01.271]I'm certainly not in the courtroom,
[00:33:02.919]but having a legal degree and being a lawyer
[00:33:05.413]opens the doors up for so many other opportunities.
[00:33:08.471]You don't just have to practice law.
[00:33:10.717]I think having that legal training really gives you
[00:33:14.789]a strong foundation of what you can do.
[00:33:21.019]I worked there that summer before I went to the Pre-Law
[00:33:24.825]Summer Institute and it was really, really wonderful.
[00:33:28.205]And then I went to the Pre-Law Summer Institute
[00:33:29.743]and worked in a law firm.
[00:33:31.248]So I think thinking about, what is it that I'm gonna do,
[00:33:34.620]what can I do to really build my resume,
[00:33:36.573]what do I want to do that is going to translate
[00:33:40.076]into whatever you want to pursue.
[00:33:42.429]I think that's the biggest thing that I would recommend,
[00:33:45.552]is finding something that you're really passionate about.
[00:33:48.275]I have a strong, I always knew since I was little
[00:33:50.824]that I wanted to do some type of Native American law,
[00:33:53.709]or not Native American Law but to work
[00:33:55.819]on behalf of Native American people.
[00:33:57.526]There's so many different ways that you can do that,
[00:33:59.285]but having that passion or that strong
[00:34:03.918]connection is what really drives me
[00:34:08.935]and helps me get up everyday to go to work.
[00:34:10.968]As I mentioned, I have a four-year-old and I have
[00:34:12.353]a three-month-old, and so getting up and going to work,
[00:34:15.530]it's hard to leave my kids at home,
[00:34:17.153]and it's not easy being a working mom, especially at
[00:34:19.120]a big firm in DC, we're expected to do a lot of hours,
[00:34:24.070]billable hours is what they're called.
[00:34:26.304]Luckily my firm's very supportive, we have a great
[00:34:28.625]maternity policy, I've been able to be on maternity now
[00:34:30.785]for it will be four months, and then once I go back I work
[00:34:33.834]and then try and leave the office a little bit early
[00:34:36.266]like around 5:30 or 6, that's early.
[00:34:38.658]Go home, help out with, get the kids to bed,
[00:34:41.998]and then get back online and do more work.
[00:34:43.755]So it's not easy and as one of the attorneys
[00:34:47.309]in my firm mentioned, a female partner said,
[00:34:50.887]she said, women can have it all.
[00:34:53.068]We may just not be able to have it all at once.
[00:34:56.228]And for me that has been true,
[00:34:57.906]I think I can definitely have it all,
[00:34:59.530]but I'm putting my family as a priority,
[00:35:03.004]and I think as it will come,
[00:35:05.442]partnership will come down the road.
[00:35:08.055]So you really have to look at what works for you,
[00:35:09.923]and what are you passionate about,
[00:35:12.083]and how does that translate into your world.
[00:35:17.770]The last thing that I want to leave you with,
[00:35:19.151]because I think I've probably talked your ears off,
[00:35:21.360]I think there's supposed to be a time here,
[00:35:23.009]am I doing okay on time?
[00:35:25.279]At the end.
[00:35:26.595]Okay, okay, I'm at the end. I wanna put in
[00:35:28.978]a little challenge to you, a personal plug.
[00:35:33.026]I don't know if any of you have been down over on
[00:35:34.659]Centennial Mall lately over by the journalism school,
[00:35:37.153]but just a few weeks ago, my mother was working
[00:35:40.562]on a project to have the Chief Standing Bear memorial
[00:35:45.997]put in there, and it's a beautiful sculpture.
[00:35:48.728]The artist is Ben Victor, and it's a beautiful sculpture
[00:35:53.837]of Chief Standing Bear.
[00:35:55.177]For those of you that aren't familiar
[00:35:56.371]with Chief Standing Bear, that's my challenge to you,
[00:35:58.012]is to go out and learn the story of Chief Standing Bear.
[00:36:00.197]He's the chief from my tribe, the Ponca tribe.
[00:36:03.845]I'll give you just a snapshot of the story.
[00:36:06.919]And then I put it on you to go and see the sculpture
[00:36:10.409]and then also learn more about the story.
[00:36:14.325]It was in the late 1800s during the Indian removal,
[00:36:17.625]where they were going to move our tribe down
[00:36:19.844]to Oklahoma, I mentioned they had walked down 500 miles
[00:36:22.587]and along the way Chief Standing Bear's son Bear Shield
[00:36:26.027]passed away, and his dying wish to his father was
[00:36:28.685]that he would be buried in his homeland.
[00:36:31.060]And Chief Standing Bear Said, son I will do that,
[00:36:33.997]and I'll bury you in your homeland in Niobrara.
[00:36:38.458]So he took 30 members of the tribe and walked
[00:36:40.645]all the way back, 500 miles back, and along the way,
[00:36:44.123]they were stopped and detained by the army in Omaha.
[00:36:47.936]And there was a trial, where for the first time,
[00:36:53.136]the court found that Indians are human beings
[00:36:55.669]within the meaning of the law, and that was in 1879.
[00:36:59.271]And the Ponca tribe, we were allowed to go back
[00:37:01.406]to our homeland, we didn't really have any land at the time,
[00:37:03.460]so we had to go through a long process of getting land
[00:37:05.507]restored there, but it's a very powerful story.
[00:37:08.669]I think it's a story about resilience and love
[00:37:11.479]for your family, and, as Nebraskans I think
[00:37:14.254]we can all really relate to that.
[00:37:19.394]I'll leave you with that to look into that story more.
[00:37:23.581]Other stories that happened here in Nebraska
[00:37:26.445]and I think all of you that are students here
[00:37:29.162]you're getting a great education at UNL.
[00:37:31.341]It really does provide a wonderful foundation
[00:37:33.684]for your future, and I wish you all the best.
[00:37:37.276]I am open to any questions that you might have.
[00:37:42.432](applause)
[00:37:50.868]Yes.
[00:37:51.701]Do you foresee doing any water
[00:37:52.931]litigation in Nebraska?
[00:37:55.472]We haven't had any tribes here approach us,
[00:38:00.155]but there's always the possibility, I know there's a lot
[00:38:02.384]that are pending or that will be coming up in Oklahoma,
[00:38:04.836]there's a bunch in New Mexico, there's always a lot
[00:38:07.402]in California, but I haven't heard too many that have
[00:38:10.703]really raised Indian water settlements to us.
[00:38:15.281]I know the pipeline has been a very controversial topic
[00:38:18.832]that a lot of people have been following here.
[00:38:23.790]Great story by the way.
[00:38:25.115]Thanks.
[00:38:26.264]Yes?
[00:38:27.146]Have you ever thought
[00:38:27.979]about running for public office?
[00:38:29.867]Oh goodness, probably not, although I wouldn't
[00:38:33.516]close the door to it.
[00:38:34.592]My husband's probably more out to do that.
[00:38:36.896]He is the executive director for the Navajo nation in DC.
[00:38:43.318]Their office is in, their main office is out in Arizona,
[00:38:46.592]but they have an office in DC and he's the head of that,
[00:38:49.337]and I think he has more political aspirations than I do.
[00:38:52.508]But I wouldn't close the door to it,
[00:38:55.088]but it's a grind. Yeah?
[00:39:00.899]So let's see, Columbia Law School
[00:39:03.574]is a very prestigious school, obviously it's not cheap.
[00:39:06.608]I don't expect you to go into your details but,
[00:39:09.843](faint speaking)
[00:39:15.554]if you don't mind my asking.
[00:39:16.811]No no, I think that's a great question.
[00:39:18.759]Because that is one thing that a lot of students ask me
[00:39:21.935]when they're considering, okay, I got into x, y and z
[00:39:24.841]school, where would you recommend that I go?
[00:39:26.803]So I would always recommend you go to the top-rated school
[00:39:28.930]where you get the most money.
[00:39:30.457]I didn't get a ton of money from Columbia and I know,
[00:39:35.386]let's see I graduated there in 2005, so that was over,
[00:39:38.710]well, 12 years ago, and inflation, the cost of school
[00:39:42.466]there is even more, I think they covered a year
[00:39:44.884]of my tuition, so I still came out of Columbia
[00:39:46.994]with over $100,000 worth of debt.
[00:39:50.052]And to me it was worth it.
[00:39:52.385]But coming out with that amount of debt,
[00:39:56.252]it limits your ability to work at certain jobs.
[00:40:01.312]Columbia had a great public interest repayment plan as well,
[00:40:06.361]that if you went into certain sectors or jobs,
[00:40:09.587]that they would help you pay back your loans
[00:40:12.097]over a ten-year period, they had a scholarship at Columbia,
[00:40:15.251]which I think they've used all the money up now,
[00:40:17.009]but I received the scholarship there that helped
[00:40:19.508]you pay off your loans over a ten-year period
[00:40:22.219]if you were going into Indian Law.
[00:40:24.084]Someone had gifted a sizeable donation to the school.
[00:40:27.182]So there are opportunities like that,
[00:40:29.549]but that is a big factor to consider
[00:40:31.826]if you are going to law school,
[00:40:33.551]because just having that debt,
[00:40:35.001]and I know it's even more expensive than it was back then,
[00:40:37.394]it does limit the type of work that you can go into.
[00:40:43.155]So that's a good question.
[00:40:48.046]Anyone else?
[00:40:50.389]Do you do any work for tribes
[00:40:51.715]in Nebraska pro bono?
[00:40:54.250]Thanks Mom. (laughs) That's another great thing
[00:40:58.508]about my firm, it's one of these large, large law firms
[00:41:02.775]that has very large billable rates,
[00:41:05.750]but we also really support pro bono work.
[00:41:08.408]So I've been able to do, I helped revise my tribe's
[00:41:12.211]law and order code and I'm also working on a trail bill
[00:41:15.822]to try and establish the Chief Standing Bear trail
[00:41:18.472]from Nebraska down to Oklahoma as a federal designation
[00:41:21.869]through the National Parks Service.
[00:41:23.523]We've passed the bill on the House now, twice,
[00:41:27.185]Congressman Fortenberry's been wonderful and very supportive
[00:41:29.220]of the bill, and we haven't got as far on the Senate side,
[00:41:33.206]so we're still trying to get that passed.
[00:41:35.849]But those are two issues that I've worked on pro bono.
[00:41:39.814]Thanks Mom.
[00:41:44.384]Anything else?
[00:41:45.217]Thank you so much for all coming out
[00:41:46.800]and I'm happy to talk on a more smaller scale basis
[00:41:50.975]when we go over for cookies and what not.
[00:41:53.555]But thanks again.
[00:41:55.382](applause)

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Big Red Talks - Katie Brossy

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