A KU Law team received the highest advocacy honors at the National Native American Law Students Association Moot Court Competition in February.

Third-year law students Karen Fritts and Zachary Kelsay received the competition’s first-place award for Best Overall Advocates at the University of California Berkeley School of Law. Kelsay and Fritts also placed in the top three out of 68 teams at the competition.

This is the fifth time in the past six years that KU Law has placed in the top three at the NNALSA competition. KU Law teams brought home the national championship in 2016 and 2019 as well as second-place finishes in 2015 and 2017.

Students at KU Law have the opportunity to train diplomats on indigenous issues and conflict resolution as part of a new partnership. KU Law recently signed a memorandum of understanding in May with the United Nations Institute for Training and Research to provide skills development training for diplomats at the UN.

KU Law students and faculty will lead training sessions on topics related to the UN’s 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and Sustainable Development Goals. The 17 sustainable goals in Agenda 2030 cover issues including eliminating poverty, eliminating hunger, gender equality and quality education.

Professor Sarah Deer, L’99, has dedicated her career to ending violence against women in Native American communities. For nearly 30 years, she has advocated for the protection of Native women and worked with survivors.

Her scholarship and advocacy focus on the intersection of federal Indian law and victims’ rights. She was instrumental in the development and passage of landmark legislation that protects Native American women from gender-based violence.

Earlier this year, she was selected to be in the 2020 class of Andrew Carnegie Fellows. Through the fellowship, Deer will author a book, Indigenous Democracies: Native Women and the Future of Tribal Nations in the United States, about the basis of indigenous democracies in Native women’s political activism.

In September, Deer was appointed as a University Distinguished Professor in KU’s Department of Women, Gender & Sexuality Studies. She has a joint appointment in the School of Public Affairs & Administration and is a courtesy professor at KU Law.

KU’s NALSA chapter had another exciting year on campus. First and foremost, our team earned the most points toward KU Law’s Moot Court ranking at the National NALSA Moot Court Competition. 3Ls Karen Fritts and Zachary Kelsay received the competition’s first place award for Best Overall Advocates. Our chapter had three other teams that made it to the competition, and we are so proud of the work they did as individual teams and as Best Overall Advocates.

Our chapter also participated in hosting lunch-hour events and tabling on campus. We were lucky to have Becky Howlett, L’14, speak with students about careers in Federal Indian Law and bring more exposure to our organization on campus. We also tabled for Indigenous People’s Day, raising awareness of the ancestral Kaw, Osage, Potawatomi, Kickapoo and Ioway lands that our school sits on.

We are very excited to start another year welcoming many new members into our chapter. Our newly elected president, first-year law student Tara Hammer, is a graduate of Haskell Indian Nations University, received a Master of Public Health from the KU Medical Center, and worked as the energy sustainability specialist for the Citizen Band Potawatomi Nation before coming to KU to focus on tribal and environmental law. Our new vice president, 1L Kevin Barnett, came to KU after working as an Indian child welfare worker for the Lac du Flambeau Band of Lake Superior Chippewa Indians, and hopes to continue his work raising awareness on the issues Native communities face in his time at KU. Our outgoing president, Aidan Graybill, L’21, is now serving on the National NALSA Board as the Area 3 Representative, serving NALSA chapters in Arkansas, Iowa, Kansas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, Oklahoma and Texas.

While most of our programming and Moot Court Competition will take place virtually, we hope to make the most of the 2020-2021 academic year by taking every opportunity we can to build community among our members. We are as proud as ever of our membership, and we are grateful for your continued support of KU’s NALSA chapter!

By Aidan Graybill, L'21; KU NALSA President, 2019-20

and Tara Hammer, L'23; KU NALSA President, 2020-21

Holly Zane, L’86, is now the associate director of Freedom’s Frontier National Heritage Area for Kansas and Missouri. The organization helps protect, preserve and educate the public about bleeding and civil war Kansas and Missouri and Underground Railroad sites. Zane retired from the State of Kansas after more than 32 years of service, most recently with KU and the Kansas Juvenile Correctional Complex.

Sarah Deer, L’99, was selected for a fellowship in the Andrew Carnegie Fellows class of 2020. Fellows are chosen for their quality research addressing important and enduring issues confronting society. Deer will use the funding to complete a book on a new era of visibility for contemporary Native American women as political activists.

Joshua Arce, L’05, was appointed as the new president and chief executive officer of Partnership with Native Americans, a Native-led and Native-serving nonprofit organization.

Report your alumni news and update your contact and employment information at law.ku.edu/keep-touch. Have a story of interest to fellow alumni? Contact Margaret Hair at mhair@ku.edu.