HISTORY
The education of Native people is woven into the long history of Harvard University. The Charter of 1650 pledges the University to “the education of English and Indian youth” and Harvard’s first Native American graduate graduated in the class of 1665. Since that time, more than 1000 Native people have earned their degrees from Harvard University.
CURRENT INDIAN LAW FACULTY
Michalyn Steele (Seneca Nation)
2025 Oneida Indian Nation Visiting Professor of Law
Professor Michalyn Steele grew up in western New York on the Cattaraugus Reservation of the Seneca Nation of Indians. Michalyn graduated from Brigham Young University with degress in Humanities (B.A. and M.A.) and a J.D. from the Georgetown University Law Center. She is the Marion G. Romney Professor of Law and has served as the Associate Dean for Faculty and Curriculum and the Associate Dean for Research and Curriculum at the J. Reuben Clark Law School at Brigham Young University. Professor Steele’s scholarship focuses on the sovereign powers of Native American tribes and has been published in the Harvard Law Review, the New York Law Review, and the UCLA Law Review, among others.
Prior to joining the academy, Professor Steele worked as a Counselor to the Assistant Secretary for Indian Affairs at the U.S. Department of Interior, as an Associate at the D.C. firm (specializing in representing Tribes) Sonosky, Chambers, Sachse, Enderson & Perry, and for six years as a Trial Attorney at the U.S. Department of Justice’s Civil Rights Division as part of the Housing and Civil Enforcement Section. Her work at the Department of Justice was honored with several awards recognizing her achievements in Fair Housing Act investigations and litigation. Professor Steele teaches Federal Indian Law, Civil Rights, and Constitutional Law.
Megan Davis (Aboriginal)
2024 Gough Whitlam and Malcolm Fraser Visiting Professor of Australian Studies
Professor Megan Davis, a leading constitutional lawyer on Indigenous constitutional recognition, will visit Harvard as the Gough Whitlam and Malcolm Fraser Chair of Australian Studies at Harvard University and visiting professor of law at Harvard Law School for the 2024-2025 academic year.She is currently Pro Vice-Chancellor Society and Scientia Professor at the University of New South Wales, Australia, where she has held the Balnaves Chair for Constitutional Law since 2020. She previously served as the university’s Pro Vice-Chancellor Indigenous. Her research is focused on constitutional design, democratic theory, and Indigenous constitutional rights and recognition.
Joseph William Singer
Bussey Professor of Law
Professor Joseph William Singer began teaching at Boston University School of Law in 1984 and has been teaching at Harvard Law School since 1992. He was appointed Bussey Professor of Law in 2006. Singer received a B.A. from Williams College in 1976, an A.M. in political science from Harvard in 1978, and a J.D. from Harvard Law School in 1981. He clerked for Justice Morris Pashman on the Supreme Court of New Jersey from 1981 to 1982 and was an associate at the law firm of Palmer & Dodge in Boston, focusing on municipal law, from 1982 to 1984. He teaches and writes about property law, conflict of laws, and federal Indian law, and has published more than 50 law review articles. He was one of the executive editors of the 2012 edition of Cohen’s Handbook of Federal Indian Law. He has written a casebook and a treatise on property law, as well as two theoretical books on property called Entitlement: The Paradoxes of Property and The Edges of the Field: Lessons on the Obligations of Ownership.
INDEPENDENT STUDY IN FEDERAL INDIAN LAW
Students who want to specialize in Federal Indian Law can effectively get an advanced course by doing an independent writing project. Professor Singer supervises students in research projects and writing law review articles or policy papers on Federal Indian law for credit during the 2L and 3L year. This is a capstone experience allowing for advanced work focused on a student’s particular interests for students who have already taken the basic Federal Indian Law course.
CLINICAL
Harvard Law School does not have an established Indian law or Indigenous rights clinical. However, NALSA students have previously designed and pursued an independent clinical or supervised writing project in Indian law. Students have previously worked with NARF and other Indian law clinicals in a variety of areas, including the current Native Hawaiian rights dispute.
COURSES
Harvard Law School offers a number of courses on topics related to Indigenous communities including: American Indian Law; The Art of Social Change: Child Welfare, Education and Juvenile Justice; Climage Change Justice; Colorblindness; Debating Race in American Law; and Environmental Law.
OTHER HARVARD UNIVERSITY NATIVE PROGRAMS
1. Harvard Project on American Indian Economic Development
Founded by Professors Stephen Cornell and Joseph P. Kalt at Harvard University in 1987, the Harvard Project on American Indian Economic Development (Harvard Project) is housed within the Malcolm Wiener Center for Social Policy at the John F. Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University. Through applied research and service, the Harvard Project aims to understand and foster the conditions under which sustained, self-determined social and economic development is achieved among American Indian nations. The Harvard Project’s core activities include research, advisory services, executive education and the administration of a tribal governance awards program. In all of its activities, the Harvard Project collaborates with the Native Nations Institute for Leadership, Management and Policy at the University of Arizona. The Harvard Project is also formally affiliated with the Harvard University Native American Program, an interfaculty initiative at Harvard University.
At the heart of the Harvard Project is the systematic, comparative study of social and economic development on American Indian reservations. What works, where and why? For more information, visit http://www.hpaied.org/
2. Harvard University Native American Program
As one of the University’s Interfaculty Initiatives, the Harvard University Native American Program is uniquely situated to bring together students, faculty, and staff from all parts of the University as well as friends and community members from peer schools and the surrounding Cambridge/Boston area. HUNAP serves three primary purposes on Harvard’s campus: teaching and research, community building, and Indigenous outreach. HUNAP provides students with the opportunity to engage in social, academic and cultural events throughout the year, while also allowing students to work closely with other Native graduate and professional students as well. Many HUNAP members become leading scholars and practitioners who make significant contributions to Indian Country.
For more information, visit HUNAP’s website at http://www.hunap.harvard.edu/
3. National NALSA participation
Harvard NALSA students attend the Federal Indian Bar Association Conference each year, and often also attend the NNALSA Moot Court and Writing Competitions. In 2006 Harvard NALSA even hosted a session of the Navajo Nation Supreme Court.