Robert Anderson, associate professor of law and Director of the University of Washington School of Law’s Native American Law Center, will be the Oneida Nation Visiting Professor of Law at Harvard Law School for five years, a term that begins in the fall of 2010.
“I am delighted that Bob has accepted our invitation,” said Dean Martha Minow. “He will bring so much to HLS: his strong knowledge of the law, his extensive and significant practice experience both in government and in the private sector, and his ability to create and run the Native American Law Center at the UW, which includes a leading clinical component.”
Since 2001, Anderson has served as associate professor of law at the University of Washington School of Law. He teaches courses in federal Indian law, advanced courses and seminars in Indian law, as well as courses in public land law, property law, and water law. Anderson just completed teaching American Indian Law during the winter term at HLS. He will retain his position at the University of Washington.
“It’s a tremendous honor for me to join the Harvard law faculty as a visiting professor,” said Anderson. “I am most pleased that Harvard Law School recognizes the importance of the study of federal Indian law and I look forward to being part of this great university.”
Anderson is a co-author and a member of the Executive Editorial Board of Cohen’s Handbook of Federal Indian Law, as well as a new casebook in the field, American Indian Law: Cases and Commentary. He has published a number of law review articles in the field, including most recently, a forthcoming article on water rights in the California Law Review; “Alaska Native Rights, Statehood and Unfinished Business,” 43 Tulsa Law Review 17 (2007); “Indian Water Rights and the Federal Trust Responsibility,” 46 Natural Resources Law Journal 399 (2006); and “Indian Water Rights: Litigation and Settlements,” 42 Tulsa Law Review 23 (2006).
In addition to his academic credentials, Anderson has extensive practice experience. From 1983 to 1995, he served as senior staff attorney for the Native American Rights Fund. In 1995, he became associate solicitor for Indian Affairs in the U.S. Department of the Interior. From 1997 to 2001, Anderson was counselor to Secretary of the Interior Bruce Babbitt. Recently, he served as co-lead for the Department of the Interior Agency Review for President-Elect Obama’s Transition Team.
An enrolled member of the Bois Forte Band of the Minnesota Chippewa Tribe, Anderson remains active in tribal matters and serves as Chief Justice of the Court of Appeals of the Pokagon Band of Potawatomi Indians and as an appellate judge in the Northwest Intertribal Court of Appeals. In 2007 he received the Native Justice Award from the Northwest Indian Bar Association.
Anderson holds a B.A. from Bemidji State University and a J.D. from the University of Minnesota Law School.
The Oneida Indian Nation Professorship was established in 2003 by Ray Halbritter ’90, an Oneida Nation Representative and CEO of Oneida Nation Enterprises, in order to “help create a better understanding of the complex legal issues faced by all American Indians today and in the future.”