Paul Spruhan is Assistant Attorney General of the Litigation Unit at the Navajo Nation Department of Justice in Window Rock, Arizona. He received his A.B. in 1995 and his A.M. in 1996 from the University of Chicago. He received his J.D. in 2000 from the University of New Mexico. He has several Indian law articles published in law reviews, including A Legal History of Blood Quantum in Federal Indian Law to 1935, 51 South Dakota Law Review 1 (2006). His latest article is CDIB: The Role of the Certificate of Degree of Indian Blood in Defining Native American Legal Identity, forthcoming in the American Indian Law Journal. He also teaches Indian law topics for Barbri, Inc. and the Tulsa Law School Masters of Jurisprudence in Indian Law Program. He and his wife, Bidtah Becker, have two children and live in Fort Defiance on the Navajo Nation.
At a recent White House event held to honor the Navajo Code Talkers, President Trump repeated a slur directed at Senator Elizabeth Warren: “Pocahontas.” A jibe originating during her campaign for the Senate, the term was applied to Senator Warren due to her claim to have Native American ancestry. Since the original attack, Senator Warren’s…
