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ACADEMIC AND STUDENT -2- A3
AFFAIRS COMMITTEE
September 27, 2018

advise the President or designee regarding campus implementation of and compliance with the
Policy and related applicable law and regulations; 2) review campus decisions regarding
potential cultural affiliation and repatriation of Native American or Native Hawaiian remains and
Cultural Items, and report its findings and recommendations to the President or designee;
3) make recommendations to the President or designee for revisions to the Policy and any
associated guidelines; and 4) assist in the resolution of disputes that may arise in connection with
this policy. Campuses may further establish their own local NAGPRA advisory committees. The
three campuses with museums housing NAGPRA-covered human remains and cultural items
have established such committees (Berkeley, Davis, and UCLA).

In 2001, California passed the California Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation
Act (CalNAGPRA) to facilitate repatriation to California Indian tribes, in part because at the
time the federal NAGPRA repatriation requirements applied only to remains and cultural items
requested by culturally affiliated, federally recognized tribes and the regulations required
museums to retain possession of culturally unidentifiable remains (including remains associated
with non-federally-recognized tribes) pending promulgation of regulations for that purpose
unless legally required to do otherwise or recommended to do otherwise by the Secretary of the
1
Interior. CalNAGPRA requires that the State develop processes for according official State
recognition to Native American tribes and issue a list of such state-recognized tribes for the
purposes of repatriation. While the State has not yet issued guidelines for this process, the UC
Cultural Repatriation Policy includes a provision specifying that the University will repatriate to
State-recognized tribes, which is consistent with CalNAGPRA.

Current Status of NAGPRA Activities

Each campus with NAGPRA-covered collections has completed inventories and summaries of
human remains and cultural items as required by federal NAGPRA and has provided copies to
relevant tribes as well as to federal officials for publication in the Federal Register, as required
by law. Campus overviews of the current status of their NAGPRA activities are attached to this
item.

Historical Tensions

Human remains and associated materials have come to UC campuses by a wide variety of means,
including archeological digs, unintentional discoveries, transfers from county coroner’s offices,
and donations. Regardless of the means, the difficult, fraught, and often tragic context in which
human remains and objects were removed from their burial locations, often without the consent
of descendent communities, is well-documented and acknowledged, and this history
overshadows tensions about university collections that include Native American remains and
associated cultural items.

1 Since then, federal NAGPRA regulations were promulgated that require museums to offer to transfer culturally
unidentifiable remains to federally-recognized tribes, and that specify that museums may make dispositions of
culturally unidentifiable remains to non-federally recognized tribes when there is no request from a federally-
recognized tribe, upon recommendation of the Secretary of the Department of Interior.