Faculty News

Carolina Academic Press announces the upcoming release of Professor Steve Russell's new book, Sequoyah Rising: Problems in Post-Colonial Tribal Governance. Sequoyah Rising is the first book to address the democracy deficit in tribal governments directly but from an Indian point of view. Other attempts to deal with the question have typically been by non-Indians intent on portraying tribal governments as bastions of racial privilege and having as their object not reform but destruction. 

If democratic theories underlying the US Constitution have American Indian origins, this book argues, Indians should be able to govern themselves in the 21st century in a democratic and transparent manner. Nothing written here is to absolve the US government from responsibility for the homicides, the thefts, and the broken promises, and much of that ignominious history is recounted. However, the purpose is to help Indian nations do the best they can with what they have, understanding that the most important milestone towards a return to freedom will be an end to dependence. The book further argues that the famous cases that memorialize the victories of the mainstream civil rights movement simply have no analogs in federal Indian law. It concludes that it will probably be necessary at some point to win freedom the same way the former slaves did, by exhibiting the courage demanded by militant nonviolence.

Professor Bruce D. Sales has been named the Virginia L. Roberts Professor of Criminal Justice. Before joining our department in January of 2009, he was Professor of Psychology, Sociology, Psychiatry, and Law at the University of Arizona, where he also directed its Psychology, Policy, and Law Program. Professor Sales is one of the most prolific authors and researchers in his multiple areas of scholarship, and also one of the most distinguished. He has authored over two dozen books and several hundred articles. He was the first editor of the journals Law and Human Behavior and Psychology, Public Policy, and Law.  He is a Fellow of the American Psychological Association and the Association for Psychological Science; he also is an elected member of the American Law Institute and twice served as President of the American Psychology-Law Society. He received the Award for Distinguished Contributions to Psychology and Law from the American Psychology-Law Society, the Award for Distinguished Professional Contributions to Public Service from the American Psychological Association, and an honorary Doctor of Science degree from the City University of New York for being the "founding father of forensic psychology as an academic discipline."