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ACADEMIC AND STUDENT -3- A3
AFFAIRS COMMITTEE
September 27, 2018

In addition, compliance with NAGPRA involves following a number of steps prescribed both
under the law and under University policy, including consultation with tribes, evaluation of
multiple lines of evidence, making often complex determinations, getting appropriate review,
and publication of Notices in the Federal Register. These steps can be labor-intensive and time-
consuming. Moreover consultation is an iterative process. All of this is difficult to work through
and can contribute to perceptions that the University stalls or unfairly or unlawfully denies
repatriation.

The University has published Notices of Inventory Completion in the Federal Register, allowing
for the repatriation or transfer of nearly 6,000 Native American human remains and more than
200,000 associated funerary objects, pending claims from the relevant tribes, and each campus
continues to update its NAGPRA summaries and inventories as needed and as required by law.
In completing inventories, the University has consulted and continues to consult with Native
American tribes as required by NAGPRA and the UC Cultural Repatriation Policy. Campuses
report that they are regularly engaged in communications with Native American tribes, including
through written and telephonic communications, visits, and consultations. For whatever reason,
though, many of the culturally affiliated Native American human remains have not been claimed
by the tribes and continue to be housed at UC campuses until such requests for repatriation are
made. For example, at UC Berkeley, 45 percent of the human remains published as culturally-
affiliated in Berkeley’s Federal Register Notices remain in the Hearst Museum’s care, to be
transferred at the affiliated tribes’ discretion, at such time as their own cultural, spiritual, and
logistical concerns allow.

Another area of occasional tension arises when the University and tribes reach different
conclusions about whether particular items meet the criteria for coverage under NAGPRA or
about how to interpret and appropriately weight different lines of evidence in making
determinations under applicable laws. Both the law and the available evidence are not always
straightforward to interpret. Disagreements arise that can cause tension.

There is also a perception that the UC Cultural Repatriation Policy gives undue deference to the
perceived educational and research potential that human remains and cultural items have for
academia and science. While the Policy does recognize this potential, it also recognizes that
individuals and communities have cultural and religious concerns that must be considered in
determining the treatment and disposition of remains in its collections. The importance of this
balance was expressed by the late U.S. Senator Daniel Inouye, lead author of the NAGPRA
legislation: “NAGPRA represents an effort to strike a balance between the interest in scientific
examination of skeletal remains and the recognition that Native Americans, like people from
every culture around the world, have a religious and spiritual reverence for the remains of their
2
ancestors.” It is important to note that the potential educational or research value should not be,
and is not, used as a factor by the University in determining cultural affiliation or in determining
whether human remains or cultural items are subject to repatriation. In addition, the UC Cultural
Repatriation Policy prohibits research or teaching use of human remains and cultural items in

2 Daniel K. Inouye, Repatriation: Forging New Relationships, 24 ARIZ. ST. L.J. 1 (1992). Senator Inouye was the
Senate sponsor of NAGPRA.