Interview with Dr. Bryan Brayboy from Arizona State University

Today we are talking to Dr. Bryan Brayboy from Arizona State University.  Dr. Brayboy is known for his research on race and diversity in higher education, as well as experiences of indigenous students and staff in universities.  Today, he discusses the misunderstandings that exist regarding indigenous people in higher ed.  He says the first misconception is that those students don’t exist in this space.  Another misconception is that indigenous people get their education paid for, when in fact finances are the primary barrier for these students.  Dr. Brayboy says people also mistakenly believe that the transition from tribal community to university is easy.  There are some things that have been done in the name of serving indigenous students that simply miss the mark.  Land acknowledgments, for one, feel more performative with little to no follow up.  Dr. Brayboy says when we talk about land, we should understand that we’re talking about a physical space and that it should be more about a place, or a space with meaning.  Dr. Brayboy says we need to recognize history and do something about it.

Indigenous people have been in the news lately because of the boarding school survivors, which brought up a history of indoctrination.  Dr. Brayboy says it’s impossible to not acknowledge past wrongdoings in regard to assimilation and tearing culture away from indigenous people.  Institutions need to get clear about who they are in regard to these matters.  We need to be asking indigenous people how we can address these past issues and then develop a plan to move it forward.  The key is to include indigenous people’s perspectives.

There’s been a national conversation about critical race theory, or CRT.  Dr. Brayboy says the broader public isn’t getting much right about CRT, which emerged from critical legal studies in the late 70s.  It was meant to take a look at how we think about the law and institutional barriers rooted in race.  Dr. Brayboy says we haven’t done a great job being clear about civics education, and most people don’t know a lot about how the government works.  We need to get a clear sense about the history of founding documents and structure of government.  In regard to CRT, we need to stop thinking it’s about who should be ashamed of who they are and focus back on institutional structures and how race affects that.