Less talk, more action: Why I’m tired of Stanford’s land acknowledgements

Last quarter, I stood before Enchanted Broccoli Forest (EBF), Stanford’s loosely arts-themed co-op. They were throwing a party on a cold November night, and we were told we needed to read a cardboard sign aloud in order to get in. It read: “This is Muwekma Ohlone land, $19 billion of stolen resources for which Leland Stanford murdered Muwekma Ohlone people. The Muwekma Ohlone continue to struggle for federal recognition. I acknowledge the violence complicit in my presence here.”

Here at Stanford, land acknowledgments inhabit every sphere – from drunken Friday nights to commemorating the start of class time to speeches at frosh orientation. Constant acknowledgment has left us desensitized. So much so that, at Stanford, it has lost almost all of its value. 

For Stanford, authenticity is the issue. 

Stanford’s websites highlight the university’s interactions with local tribes, which include creating a “Native Plants Garden,” a lecture program hosted by Indigenous speakers and an annual Powwow celebration on Stanford grounds. Undoubtedly, educational initiatives, guest lectures and community traditions are important in recognizing Indigenous cultures and people; however, one piece is sorely missing — advocacy. It is difficult to find follow-through on Native American advocacy anywhere online, unless it is Native American students themselves organizing to make tangible change, which is mostly done through the Native American Cultural Center (NACC). Stanford’s most notable contribution to Natives involves restoring artifacts of the past, such as funding research for burial grounds located on campus and repatriating around 1,000 Indigenous remains back to their families. Even so, the return of remains and research shouldn’t be the end to Stanford’s contributions. For such a large school, there’s a surprising lack of institutional advocacy aimed towards Indigenous populations that live in our society today.

So, what should Stanford be doing? I reached out to Anagali Duncan ’26, a junior here who identifies as part of the Cherokee Nation, to learn more. For some background, Duncan’s ancestors were forcibly removed from their lands in the Southeast through the federally enforced Indian Removal Act and Trail of Tears in the late 1830s.

“[Land] has caused rifts in our community, because, now we’re kind of viewing land as something that is ownable… That’s not our original mindset, but that’s something that I think has influenced my work as an indigenous activist and a scholar as well, is, trying to break the cycle of colonial mindsets in intruding our own ways of being,” said Duncan.

Duncan believes Stanford’s collaboration with the Muwekma Ohlone — especially its historic efforts to repatriate Native American remains and other cultural artifacts residing in the Cantor Museum back to their rightful communities — is “one of the better relationships [he’s] seen with other tribal nations.” However, I don’t think comparison to other universities who are doing objectively worse should be a benchmark for success. Duncan describes Stanford’s current acknowledgments as empty promises, and I agree. It makes me wonder if this type of unfulfilled land acknowledgement is even worth saying. Does acknowledgement cause more harm than good if it’s purely performative?

Not only does Stanford struggle with sincerity in its Native inclusion, its frequent land acknowledgments also open up questions of where to draw the line. During New Student Orientation (NSO), one speaker not only acknowledged Native Americans but endeavored to acknowledge Chinese-Americans who constructed the Transcontinental railroad and the African Americans who were forcibly enslaved during the slave trade. Sitting in the audience, I reflected on my identity as a Chinese-American. I had gained nothing from those few seconds of lip service. 

This hand-wavy inclusivity felt ridiculous to me. Who should we acknowledge next? Every person who has experienced oppression? Of course, honoring the past is important, but at what point does land acknowledgment devolve into a virtue signaling competition? A recent The New York Times article on this subject quoted a member of the Chippewa Indians and Native advocacy leader Keith Richotte Jr., who said if land acknowledgements “are treated as the only or last step of one’s commitment to Indigenous peoples and nations, then they can become more harmful than beneficial.”

What can help drive change for the Indigenous community at a university level? It begins with admitting Indigenous students and fighting for their federal recognition. To even receive scholarships based on Indigenous identity for an institution as expensive and selective as Stanford, students’ Native tribes require federal recognition. Duncan said on some college campuses, such as Brown, there are “more deceased Indigenous relatives on their architectural investigations on the campus than there are Indigenous students.”

Similarly, whether it’s from a lack of directed outreach or accessibility towards higher education in Native communities, Indigenous students represent an abysmal 1% of Stanford’s total population, which is an embarrassing amount of students for an institution that touts land acknowledgement at almost every public event.  

Beyond efforts to support Native communities, there is the more complex topic of “land back.” I’ve heard some people tell me, “well, we’re not just going to give the entirety of the United States back.” Agreed. But land back is possible in small amounts. In a 2009 class action, Cobell vs. Salazar, the U.S. government settled with Indigenous tribes, giving $1.69 billion dollars of land back to their communities. Although this took an class action lawsuit and the abuse of Native assets, this occurrence shows that land back is possible on a national scale, which makes it even more feasible on a local level and for a place like Stanford.

If the administration doesn’t hold itself accountable for its acknowledgments, students must take responsibility for themselves. The root of land acknowledgment should be a promise for the land back. As a replacement for passive acknowledgment, the questions we should be asking need to include Muwekma Ohlone and the Native community that continues to thrive in society today. I’d like to start the conversation with a question Duncan posed to me: “What steps are we taking to make sure that one day… this will eventually be Muwekma Ohlone land again?”

The post Less talk, more action: Why I’m tired of Stanford’s land acknowledgements appeared first on The Stanford Daily.