Talk:Native American policy of the Richard Nixon administration

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Hi Jake (I hope I got that right),

I finished reading what you have, and here are my thoughts (they are assuming this article is complete).

Outstanding things:

-Your article was so well written to the point where I almost couldn't say that a student wrote it (reads like an article on Abraham Lincoln or something that's been edited millions of times).

-Plentiful citations to back up half the sentences (good).

-Very objective, third-person view/tone throughout article.

Almost-there things:

-It's okay to give a little background on the immediate policies prior to the Nixon administration, but I feel like too much focus was given to Kennedy and Johnson. Similar to what Peter said below, this could be balanced out by expanding a new section on immediate policies or responses after Nixon's administration, or just removing the whole section completely.

-Alternatively, you could move the Kennedy and Johnson section to the top of the article for a chronological background.

-Might be some formatting issues such as with the section titled "The Nixon Administration". Not sure if this was intentional or you wanted to make that a heading for the following sections.

Great job overall, Ryan

--Liryans (talk) 13:08, 11 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Hello,

This is Peter Carley from your Human Rights of Indigenous Peoples class. I just thought I'd write down some thoughts on your article as part of the peer-review wikiassignment process.

Some strong points of your article include:

• The article is very neutral. You do a good job at avoiding polarized statements and represents viewpoints fairly. Most of the time, it sticks to factually based laws regarding Native American "termination" policy, and how Nixon opposed this policy.
• The article is verifiable. Facts incorporated into the article are cited, and your sources are legitimate. Additionally, you use a wide range of sources, which contributes to a more comprehensive and detailed article as well.
• Organization. Through your sub-headings and chronological ordering of events, the reader can see how Native American policy changed in the given historical context. By giving a detailed summary of termination policy in both the Kennedy/Johnson years and in the Nixon years, one can see clearly which salient laws were implemented in certain eras, and why they matter.

Some areas that could use improvement include:

• Writing Style. I feel that you could use more basic vocabulary words, especially with regards to laws implemented. Though the a well-educated college student may understand the phrasing, it won't necessarily make sense for all people. Words like "codification", "deplorable", and "staunch" could be replaced with simpler and just as effective words.Additionally, I noticed a syntax error under your termination policy piece: "Congress passed the Indian Reorganization Act which sought to reorganize tribal systems of governance into form foreign to Indians." Did you mean "into a form foreign to Indians?"
• I noticed that you spent a lot of time discussing the background and Kennedy/Johnson years prior to Nixon, but you didn't mention anything about the years after Nixon. How did his policies shape Indian experiences later on?
• I feel like sometimes you describe laws, but don't explain how these truly affected Native American lives. For example, after writing down Kennedy's legislative actions, you didn't discuss how exactly they scaled back the tenets of termination.

Here are some areas that need changes or which could be improved in terms of their style:

• "Prior to the 1950s, Indian tribes were considered semi-autonomous nations with complete governance over their own territory." — While technically a description of the
  Indian New Deal point of view, this sentence implies a longstanding policy that applied throughout the twentieth century. It's probably better to describe a period "from the mid-1930s to the 1950s" under the Indian Reorganization Act
  . Before then, as you know, Federal policy often treated Native Americans as wards of the state, in need of improvement and "civilizing."
• Similarly, these sentences confuse the sequence a bit, "The United States government began to take a more involved role in the affairs of previously autonomous Indian tribes." and "A new era of assimilation." Arguably the IRA period was the less-assimilation oriented interruption in a 1876 to 1973 campaign of assimilationist policy.
• Public Law 280: This section should explain the alternative to criminal jurisdiction by the states. Who did have jurisdiction before it?
• "had evolved into a systematic removal of Indian autonomy." — It's unlikely that it ever was anything else.
• President Johnson paragraph should mention National Council on Indian Opportunity.
• Jackson/Gerard Material should go later in this section, according to chronology. Since most of the acts in this list were signed into law after Nixon's resignation, you should indicate Nixon's role in encouraging them to be drafted while he was president.
• I've created an American Indian protest movements section to group Alcatraz and Wounded Knee. I'd recommend an introductory paragraph above this.
• Despite the concessions to American Indian rights, the history of Nixon policy towards AI movements is incomplete without a section describing the impact of COINTELPRO on American Indian Activism. (While I'm not familiar with all of the details, I'm pretty sure this complicates or invalidates this sentence: " U.S. Marshals, FBI agents, and BIA police were deployed to Pine Ridge Reservation to diffuse the situation." And especially this one: "Once more, the Nixon Administration had used restraint and patience in a potentially violent situation." This one too: "The Nixon Administration hardened its policy toward AIM in the wake of the standoff at Wounded Knee.") [To get a sense of the range of perspectives in print on this issues, see this list of books on Wounded Knee: http://stewmagnuson.blogspot.com/2013/05/a-rundown-of-wounded-knee-occupation.html

Things that seem missing:

• You note, "President Nixon would sign 52 Congressional legislative measures on behalf of American Indians to support tribal self-rule." What were they? Were they minor acts? Why so many?
• A critical assessment of the impact of ANCSA.
• The return of Taos Blue Lake in 1970

I'm really excited to see all this material on Wikipedia. Cheers.--Carwil (talk) 17:15, 4 June 2015 (UTC)[reply]