When the 27th Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (COP27) takes place in the Egyptian coastal city of Sharm el-Sheikh in November 2022, one of the most engaging speakers honors Madison East High School. He was a man who graduated from We have deep roots in the city and state of Wisconsin.

Dawn Sturdevant Baum, one of the United States’ leading attorneys on issues of concern to indigenous peoples, is part of a featured panel discussing the critical role forests play in slowing the accumulation of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. Lectured to conference participants.

Critical to this fight, she explained, is recognizing the importance of leveraging indigenous knowledge and respecting sovereignty in addressing the climate crisis.

It’s been a long road from East High School in the mid-1990s to Egypt in 2022. But for Bohm, who earned degrees from Beloit College, the University of Wisconsin Law School, and a specialization program in American Indian and Native Law, such leaps were commonplace. University of Tulsa. By the time she was in her forties, she was a highly respected and successful advocate for indigenous peoples and their constituents. She had an amazing career ahead of her, and she had immense potential to build on the transformative work she had done to improve the condition of Indigenous peoples and the planet.

Tragically, Baum passed away on June 10th, shortly before her 46th birthday, after battling metastatic breast cancer.

Baum’s legacy will live on in communities from Wisconsin to Washington to California as one of the finest attorneys in her field. And it could be extended if Wisconsiners donated generously to the National Indian Educational Association.

It’s not the only place where people wanting to honor Baum’s legacy can donate directly. Her mother, former Dane County Superintendent and Madison City Board of Education Mary Kay Baum, and the rest of Dawn’s family also urged that donations be directed to the National Breast Cancer Foundation or Wise Women’s Gathering. and we agree with their encouragement. However, we would like to make a special offer to the National Indian Educational Association in recognition of Dawn Sterdevant Baum’s groundbreaking work for Native Americans. And also for the connections she’s made between her work and her fight against climate change.

A registered member of Ojibwa’s Mole Lake Band and Sokaogon Chippewa Community, Bohm had many Menominee relatives, including his biological father, tribal rights activist Michael Sturdevant, and grandmother Nelly Sturdevant. . Described by her family as a “strong resilient Indigenous woman,” Bohm spent decades providing representation and support for Indigenous concerns, and in the process She has become internationally recognized as a uniquely skilled Indigenous advocate. their legal rights.

After graduating from California State University Law School in 2001 with honors, he became an attorney at the Navajo Supreme Court in Window Rock, Arizona on the Navajo Reservation. She eventually returned to Wisconsin, where she served as a legal assistant to the state Supreme Court Clerk. She then moved to Washington in 2005 to join the Native American Rights Fund. Since 1970, her foundation has been “advocating and defending the most important rights of Indians and tribes in hundreds of serious cases, tribal sovereignty, treaty rights, protection of natural resources, voting rights, such as the education of

Baum was elected President of the Native American Bar Association of Washington, DC, and subsequently a member of the Council on Racial and Ethnic Diversity in the Education Pipeline of the American Bar Association. Bohm, a founding member of the American Bar Association’s Joint Task Force on Reversing the School-to-Prison Pipeline, said in the Task Force’s 2016 report on How to Reform and Improve Education for Disenfranchised Youth. He played an important role in the work leading up to the calligraphy.

During his time in Washington, Bohm worked as a Senior Counsel with the US Department of the Interior’s Bureau of Indian Affairs, working with Indian and Alaska Native colleges and schools in 64 reservations and 23 states. In addition, she joined the Law Office of the Home Office, advising and representing the Department on judicial, legislative, ethical and legal matters. She has also held positions with the US Environmental Protection Agency and the National Gambling Commission of India. One of her most important assignments is within the U.S. Department of Justice, where she serves as a dedicated point of contact for certain important legal and policy issues, established in 1995 at the request of tribal leaders. worked with the Tribal Justice Bureau, which serves as a Concern for the country of India.

After spending a dozen years in Washington, Bohm moved to California to join the legal team of the Yurok, the state’s largest tribe. She became the tribe’s general counsel, taught as an Adjunct Professor of Indian Law at her alma mater, the University of Tulsa School of Law, and became an increasingly prominent climate advocate – a visit to Egypt in 2022 confirmed it. .

Read Dawn Sterdevand Baum’s full obituary here.

Click to donate to the National Indian Education Association in memory of her here. You can also donate in her memory. National Breast Cancer Foundation Co., Ltd..and A gathering place for sages.

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