"Interdisciplinary Problem Solving" is a course offered at the Law School through the Problem Solving Initiative (PSI). (https://problemsolving.law.umich.edu/) Through a team-based, experiential, and interdisciplinary learning model, small groups of U-M graduate and professional students work with faculty to explore and offer solutions to emerging, complex problems.
Apply for W22 PSI courses November 1 - November 14 by completing the form available via this link: https://www.law.umich.edu/problemsolving/
Instructors: Matthew Fletcher (Law), April Youpee-Roll (Law)
Indian tribes provide law and order in a cross-jurisdictional matrix involving federal, state, local, and tribal agencies. This complexity, coupled with limited governmental resources, contributes to horrible violent crime rates in Indian country. Tribal police follow practices of other jurisdictions, engaging in the same police violence as non-tribal jurisdictions. Unarmed Native persons are shot and killed, many by tribal police, at a higher rate than other races and ethnicities.
In this class, multidisciplinary teams of students will study reservation policing to determine if alternate regimes are possible. Students will engage with tribal, federal, and state judges, lawyers, and elected officials to generate ideas on culturally appropriate tribal policing regimes given the legal and political landscape. The class will be taught by tribal citizens who grew up in parts of Indian country where crime rates are very high.