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Content provided by the American Bar Association Division for Public Education. Visit the Division for Public Education's website to learn more about the law and its role in society (www.abanet.org/publiced). For more profiles of pioneers in the legal profession, visit the Division for Public Education's Raising the Bar: Pioneers in the Legal Profession website at www.abanet.org/publiced/raisingthebar.html.
Kevin Gover
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As a ten-year-old child, Kevin Gover walked his first picket line with his civil rights activist parents, at a swimming pool in Oklahoma, where he grew up, a member of the Pawnee-Comanche nation. While an undergraduate at Princeton University, he marched to draw attention to the plight of American Indians. In 1997, after a distinguished legal career, President Bill Clinton nominated him for the position of Assistant Secretary for Indian Affairs in the U.S. Department of the Interior. He was confirmed one month later and served for three years. In that capacity he oversaw the operations of the Bureau of Indian Affairs and the Office of Indian Education Programs, including those related to gaming, recognition, trust assets, self-determination, water rights, tribal courts, law enforcement, and education. He was responsible for a $2.2 billion budget and supervised about 10,000 employees. He advised and reported to the Secretary of the Interior. Under his direction, the Bureau for Indian Affairs worked with tribes to bring order to their accounting and financial record-keeping, and the Bureau streamlined its procedures for getting federal funds to the tribes. Among his greatest challenges was the effort to keep in good communication with the more than 550 tribes recognized by the U.S. government. In his September 1999 remarks acknowledging the 175th anniversary of the establishment of the Bureau of Indian Affairs, Gover extended an apology to Indian people, on behalf of the agency. He also spoke candidly of the shameful acts that the Bureau had practiced in years past, in its apparent effort to destroy American Indians-their culture, heritage, language and livelihoods. However, in his closing comments, he earnestly requested that members of the audience attempt to replace their anger, shame and fear, with hope and love for their people, in an effort to "wipe the tears of seven generations." Gover graduated from Princeton University with an A.B. in Public and International Affairs in 1978. In 1981 he earned his law degree from the University of New Mexico, with honors. Following law school, he clerked with the late Judge Juan G. Burciaga of Albuquerque. From 1983-86, he practiced law in a Washington DC firm-Fried, Frank, Harris, Shriver and Jacobsen-where he focused on environmental and resource law, as well as federal Indian law. He returned to Albuquerque in 1986 and formed his own firm, which specialized in federal Indian, natural resource, environmental and housing law, and also had an extensive legislative practice. After completing his term as Assistant Secretary of Indian Affairs in 2000, Gover became a partner in the firm of Steptoe and Johnson, LLP, in Washington D.C., where his practice focused on federal law relating to Indians and Indian tribal law. Subsequently, Gover became a Professor of Law at the Arizona State University Sandra Day O'Connor College of Law. He also serves as a Judge for the Tonto Apache Tribal Court of Appeals, and the San Carlos Apache Tribal Court of Appeals. Gover has testified extensively before Congress and writes and speaks frequently on issues of law and policy involving Indian tribes. In October 2000, he received the University of New Mexico Distinguished Achievement Award. In presenting him an honorary doctorate in law in June 2001, Princeton University lauded him as a model for members of the American Indian Nations and for all Americans. Among his personal efforts to improve the lives of Indians, Kevin Gover campaigns vigorously against alcohol abuse, after addressing and conquering his own difficulties with that issue. Married to Anne Marie Gover, he has a stepdaughter and stepson. He is also father of a son and daughter from a previous marriage. (Originally published in 2002. This article has been updated to include events occurring after 2002.) |
