Journal Record: O’Connor, Cole to speak at Sovereignty Symposium
The Journal Record - M. Scott Carter
Former Supreme Court of the United States Justice Sandra Day O’Connor and Republican U.S. Rep. Tom Cole will headline the 26th annual Sovereignty Symposium, officials with the Oklahoma Supreme Court announced this week.
The symposium is one of the largest meetings in the United States focused on Indian law.
The symposium will also feature Republican Gov. Mary Fallin; David Walters, former Oklahoma governor; retired Maj. Gen. Rita Aragon, state secretary for military and veterans affairs; Ernest Stevens Jr., chairman of the National Indian Gaming Association; and many others.
The two-day event is scheduled to begin at 7:30 a.m. June 5. All sessions will be at the Skirvin Hilton Hotel in downtown Oklahoma City.
O’Connor will deliver the keynote address at 1:15 p.m. June 5 during the symposium’s opening ceremony. A graduate of Stanford University, she was appointed to the high court in 1981 by then-President Ronald Reagan. O’Connor retired from the bench in 2006.
Cole will speak about the passage of the federal Violence Against Women Act. Cole’s speech will follow O’Connor’s address.
A member of the Chickasaw Nation, Cole is one of only a handful of Native Americans currently serving in the U.S. Congress. Cole represents the state’s 4th Congressional District. He served as secretary of state under Gov. Frank Keating. He also served in the Oklahoma Senate and as the executive director of the National Republican Congressional Committee.
The symposium is expected to draw legal and cultural experts from across the country.
Considered one of the nation’s top symposiums on Indian law, the meeting provides a forum to exchange ideas, University of Oklahoma law professor Lindsay Robertson said.
Robertson, who has presented at the symposium since 1996, will be part of a panel on tribal self-government and sovereignty. He said the event offers lawyers the opportunity to receive specialized training that they might not ordinarily have.
“It’s like a mini university filled with a rich collection of diverse topics and people,” he said. “There are other Indian law conferences that attract almost exclusively lawyers. But this conference is very rich with diverse people and topics including culture and language.”
Robertson serves as faculty director for the American Indian Law and Policy Center at the University of Oklahoma College of Law.
More than 600 people are expected to attend. Sponsored by the Oklahoma Supreme Court, the event provides a forum where ideas concerning common legal issues can be exchanged in a scholarly, nonadversarial environment.
For information about the symposium, visit www.thesovereigntysymposium.com.
Online: Journal Record