Executive director of OCU Tribal Sovereignty Institute reflects on role
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With the air buzzing with political conversation, large crowds of advocates, lawyers, students and tribal leaders gathered into the OKANA Resort & Indoor Waterpark’s Grand Ballroom for the 37th annual Sovereignty Symposium.
As Oklahoma City University School of Law Dean David Holt — who is also Oklahoma City mayor and a citizen of the Osage Nation — took the stage, he recalled the previous year, when he and OCU President Kenneth Evans announced the creation of a new institute with the goal of educating students, lawyers and policymakers on tribal sovereignty, the resilience of tribal law and related legal matters.
The Tribal Sovereignty Institute, at OCU School of Law, aims to elevate the understanding of sovereignty and educate lawyers on Native American law, ultimately pursuing sovereignty initiatives beyond the legal realm through cultural preservation, language revitalization and economic development.
Holt explained how the search for the executive director of the Tribal Sovereignty Institute took about a year. After interviewing numerous candidates from all over the country for the inaugural position, he realized the perfect choice was as clear as day.
Emily Eleftherakis, a citizen of the Cherokee Nation and a member of the Delaware Tribe of Indians, is an accomplished attorney who grew up in Bartlesville. After graduating with a Bachelor of Arts in English language and literature from Oklahoma State University in 2008, she became a child welfare specialist for the Oklahoma Department of Human Services.
She later went to OCU Law, graduating in 2014 as a National Association of Women Lawyers Outstanding Graduate. Emily now lives in Edmond with her husband, Roger, and her two sons, Ellis and Theodore.
The Super Lawyers Rising Star was an adjunct clinical professor of Law at OCU, teaching in the American Indian Wills Clinic, during the tedious search for the executive director. The announcement of Eleftherakis marked a defining moment not just for OCU Law, but for Indian Country at large. Her new role signals OCU’s commitment to education, representation and sovereignty at a time when tribes are navigating significant legal and political challenges.
Q: How was the Tribal Sovereignty Institute created, and why now? Why is this institute so important, and does it have to do with McGirt or any other tribal vs. state rulings?
A: American Indian law was thrust to the forefront of legal issues after the U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling in McGirt. Since that ruling, there has been an increasingly more pressing need for credible, fact-based information related to issues of American Indian law and tribal sovereignty from an independent legal institution — and that’s what we expect the institute to provide. The institute will not only educate future lawyers but will also produce research and information for lawyers, policymakers, tribal leaders and citizens at large on the issue of tribal sovereignty in a digestible format. As federal and state courts continue to decide issues that directly affect tribes and their sovereignty, the institute will be a place to ruminate and reflect on those rulings and provide guidance, education and support to tribes on the next steps in advocating for sovereignty.
Q: Did you ever think you would hold a position like this?
A: I’ve always hoped for an opportunity to do more heavy lifting in Indian Country. I’ve had the great pleasure of working with tribal citizens personally through the work we do at the American Indian Wills Clinic at OCU Law and in my private practice. I feel incredibly privileged and honored to be stepping into this role.
Q: What are your short-term and long-term goals as the Tribal Sovereignty Institute’s inaugural executive director?
A: In the short term, we are working towards collecting information from tribal leaders and advocates to determine how we can best support and advocate for tribal sovereignty through education and policy initiatives. That is taking shape in exploring the creation of law school courses that focus on tribal issues and partnering with other institutions to recruit more Native American students to law school.
Long-term, we hope to build on our short-term goals by providing more educational opportunities for students to learn about Indian law, place tribal students in judicial externships and clerkships, and provide a broader outreach to the legal community as a whole to educate about what sovereignty is and why it’s important.
We are also looking at access to justice issues in rural Oklahoma — 31 of the 38 federally recognized tribes in Oklahoma are located in rural counties — and hope to create more opportunities for rural student access to law school and subsequently tribal community access to lawyers educated on Indian law issues.
Q: Working in this new position at OCU Law, how are you going to grow the Tribal Sovereignty Institute and improve the already great reputation OCU has established with tribes?
A: The Tribal Sovereignty Institute is not the first program at OCU Law to explore the issues of American Indian law and policy. OCU Law has historically been at the forefront of tribal law and policy issues. One out of every 10 of our students is a tribal member, and we feel an obligation to dive headfirst into that area of law and education. The institute is a reinvigorated focus designed to encourage an increased presence of OCU Law working in Indian Country and advocating for issues that strengthen tribal sovereignty.
Q: Is there anything else you want to say, reflecting on this opportunity to represent your family and Native people?
A: This is such a meaningful opportunity for me because of my family’s history and my background. It is important to me that my kids see what I’m doing and how what I am working toward is something that their great-grandmothers didn’t get to do. We should be proud of how far our tribes have come and how we should be proud of being citizens of the Cherokee Nation and the Delaware Tribe of Indians. My kids are 6 and 8, and I think it is important for them to be a part of this and see what we are doing to grow.
We just had the Sovereignty Symposium back in June, and we hosted Deb Haaland, the former secretary of the interior to President Biden. We hosted her as our keynote speaker, and I had the pleasure of meeting her and getting dinner with her, and I got to talk with her about my kids. So bringing up my kids around this and them getting to see that this history matters and what we are doing matters. I wish both of my grandmothers were alive to see what I am getting to do, and I know that my parents are very proud and my family is excited for this opportunity.
This article has been edited for length and clarity.