Native American attorney to discuss indigenous women at Bates

Note: The lecture by Tonya Gonnella Frichner, President of the American Indian Law Alliance, scheduled for March 11, has been cancelled due to her responsibilities related to the murders last week of three indigenous activists in Colombia.

Tonya Gonnella Frichner, a founder and president of the New-York based American Indian Law Alliance, will discuss Woman as Leader: An Indigenous Perspective at 4 p.m. Thursday, March 11 at 4 p.m. in the Edmund S. Muskie Archives. The public is invited to attend free of charge.

A lawyer and activist, Frichner will explore the concept of women as leaders in an indigenous context, focusing on treaties between sovereign indigenous nations and the countries in which they reside.

A member of the Onondaga Nation, Snipe Clan, Six Nations Iroquois Confederacy, Haudenosaunee, Frichner has devoted her academic and professional lives to the pursuit of rights of indigenous peoples.

The alliance is a not-for-profit, community-based organization, working for legal issues affecting all aspects of Indian survival. Along with national and international advocacy on behalf of indigenous peoples, the alliance offers direct practical help to New Your City’s native community on a walk-in basis, free of charge.

After graduating magna cum laude from St. Johns University, Frichner attended law school and received her juris doctor from the City University of New York at Queens College. For the last 10 years, she has served as a delegate of the Haudenosaunee to the United Nations Sub-Commission on Human Rights/Working Group on Indigenous Populations in Geneva, Switzerland.

Frichner is a professor of Native American law at the Greenberg Center for Legal Education & Urban Policy, the City College of New York. She serves on the board of directors and as legal counsel to the Iroquois Nation’s lacrosse team, the official national team of the Haudenosaunee.

The lecture, one of several events planned at the college for Women’s History Month, is sponsored by the Multicultural Center at Bates. For more information, call 207-786-8215.