A law professor from Minnesota and citizen of the Muscogee (Creek) Nation of Oklahoma has been named one of nearly two dozen MacArthur Fellows.
Sarah Deer has served as an assistant professor of law at William Mitchell College of Law since 2009, where she focuses on violent crime on Native American reservations.
"A citizen of the Muscogee (Creek) Nation of Oklahoma, Deer has documented in academic scholarship the historical and ideological underpinnings of the failure to adequately protect victims of physical and sexual abuse in Indian Country, and she has worked with grassroots and national organizations attempting to navigate the complex legal and bureaucratic hurdles facing Native victims of violence," the MacArthur Foundation writes.
Each so-called ‘genius grant’ recipient receives $625,000 over five years to spend as they wish on work and research, and Deer told the Associated Press she’ll likely spend the stipend on a project involving native women who have been victims of sexual assault.
She highlighted sexual violence in Indian Country in a 2007 report for Amnesty International called Maze of Injustice.
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