Native Americans face the consequences of the U.S. government’s lack of responsibility to administer land and money that is held in trust, a member of the Pawnee Nation said Friday night.

John Echohawk spoke to a crowd of about 70 in the Sun Room of the Memorial Union as the Richard Thompson Memorial speaker for the 32nd annual Symposium on the American Indian. Echohawk is executive director of the Native American Rights Fund based in Boulder, Colo.

The mismanagement of funds from the leasing and use of resources on Native American lands held in trust by the U.S. government has been the subject of much national attention because the federal government currently owes Native Americans over $137 billion, including interest, Echohawk said.

The Native American Rights Fund has been litigating a case relating to the trust funds mismanagement since 1996, and Echohawk said NARF is fighting to make the U.S. government accountable for its lack of responsibility.

“This is the largest thing NARF has going on right now,” he said.

Echohawk said the American public is generally ignorant of Native American issues because of the lack of education at the high school and college levels.

“Native American history should be taught in civics courses and a lot of public schools aren’t teaching it at all,” he said. Echohawk said increasing education on Native American history is important for all Americans

The U.S. Constitution recognizes Native Americans as sovereign nations, but due to changes from a more conservative Supreme Court, their rights as sovereign nations have been limited, Echohawk said. There are more than 500 federally recognized Native American nations to which the U.S. government has a trust responsibility.

“In 2001, the Supreme Court decided that tribal authority over non-Indians is inconsistent with our status as domestic-dependent nations,” he said. This means Native Americans do not have authority over non-Natives on their land, which limits the Native nation’s ability to govern the land. Echohawk said this was an important issue because many Native American reservations are populated by both Native and non-Native residents.

Echohawk said Congress has the right to overturn Supreme Court decisions and many Native Americans are currently fighting to make this happen. In response to Congress recognizing the Native Americans’ rights to govern, all cases decided by tribal law would be subject to review by the federal courts, he said.

“We figure it is going to be a long, long campaign and it may take many Congresses,” Echohawk said.

Colin Rafferty, graduate student in English, said Echohawk helped him understand more about the history of Native American struggles.

“It was really an exploration of the history and background of American Indian governmental issues as well as their contemporary climate of today,” he said.

Kelly Welch, ISU alumna, said more needs to be done to protect Native Americans from governmental wrongdoing.

“It makes me really angry because my grandfather is entitled to trust money and died penniless,” she said. “The government is doing nothing.”