The law library collection has a book called "Oak Flat: A Fight for Sacred Land in the American West" by Lauren Redniss, published in 2020. This book is an artistic rendering of interviews with members of the community around Oak Flat (Chi’chil Bildagoteel) in Arizona, including Naelyn Pike, an activist from a San Carlos Apache family advocating against the mining set to occur in Oak Flat.
Oak Flat by
The law library has set up an exhibit on the lower level of the law library about Oak Flat, its significance, as well as the legislation and court cases surrounding it. The exhibit includes parts of the book above, a poster and shirt from the community organization advocating to protect Oak Flat, text explaining the context of the issues and legislation surrounding Oak Flat (replicated below), as well as excerpts and a QR link to law review articles which discuss land rights, free exercise of religion for the San Carlos Apache in protecting Oak Flat as a sacred site, and legislative riders in appropriation bills (the mechanism by which legislation authorizing the mining at Oak Flat was passed).
What is Oak Flat? Why is it significant? What would be the effect of mining on the land?
According to the Association on American Indian Affairs: “Chi' chil Bildagoteel, known in English as Oak Flat, is a Traditional Cultural Property listed on the National Register of Historic Places located within the Tonto National Forest (TNF) in southeastern Arizona and is a Sacred Site to the Apache and other Native Nations. The Oak Flat area plays a particularly vital role in informing spirituality and culture of many Native Nations—past and present. Since time immemorial, Native Peoples have traveled to Oak Flat to participate in ceremonies, to pray, to gather medicines and ceremonial items, to honor those buried within its boundaries and to seek and obtain personal cleansing and healing.”
According to the Center for Biological Diversity: “The mine [planned at Oak Flat] would use a special new technique to excavate the ore body 7,000 feet underground. Material removed from the mine would spread toxic waste across thousands of acres of public land, and when ultimately closed, it would leave behind a crater up to two miles wide and 1,000 feet deep. Oak Flat would be utterly destroyed and unsafe for human visitation in perpetuity.”
What legislation and court cases surround Oak Flat?
In December 2014, a legislative rider (the Southeast Arizona Land Exchange and Conservation Act) was added to the National Defense Authorization Act of 2015, with Congress authorizing the exchange of Oak Flat to Resolution Copper Mining, LLC (owned by the companies Rio Tinto and BHP) so it could build a copper mine on the land. In return, the companies traded land they owned around Arizona to the federal government. This legislative rider slipped into an appropriations bill sidestepped the congressional debate process considering the environmental, cultural, and religious costs, especially to the San Carlos Apache.
With the legislation challenged in federal court by a nonprofit community organization called Apache Stronghold, the Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit issued a decision in 2024 rejecting efforts to stop the construction of the mine at Oak Flat, rejecting efforts to stop the construction of the mine at Oak Flat. Apache Stronghold then appealed, but it’s still unclear if the U.S. Supreme Court will take the appeal for its 2025-26 docket. On April 24, 2025, Apache Stronghold filed for an emergency injunction in the U.S. District Court in Phoenix, in response to a letter from the Trump administration that it intended to issue the final environmental impact statement, which would allow the mining to begin 60 days later. On May 9, 2025, the U.S. District Court judge ordered the temporary injunction requested by Apache Stronghold stopping the federal government from issuing the final environmental statement until it’s clear if the U.S. Supreme Court will take the appeal or not.
April 6-12 marks National Library Week, a week meant to celebrate libraries and their impact on the community. As the 67th year this week has been put on by the American Library Association, the theme this year is “Drawn to the Library,” encouraging us to literally draw what inspires us and to also reflect on what has drawn us to libraries in the first place.
It has been an eventful period leading up to this week, with changes happening in the field of library and information science across the country.
Part of the goal of National Library Week is to share stories about our own experiences with libraries and the impact they’ve had on our lives.
So here is my story:
My name is Lindsay Kriebel, and I have worked in nearly every possible role in libraries over the last 14 years. I’ve worked at academic university libraries, public libraries, on reference desks, reshelving books, even at a courthouse library. I spent two years in library school, doing internships and hands-on projects. Now I work in acquisitions at the University of Arizona Law Library, responsible for ordering books and electronic resources, among other activities.
I have seen the positive impacts of libraries on people from virtually every walk of life in this country. I’ve received questions ranging from “How do I sign into my email” to “How do I start a divorce case,” and each question was equally important to the one asking. For people seeking accurate, timely information, libraries are the stop-gap to misinformation. We are the place you go when AI chatbots hallucinate information or un-sourced articles spread online, providing you with reassuringly human, well-cited responses to your question.
We connect people to a multitude of resources, from job-searching websites to legal databases, and we put on educational and entertaining programs for all audiences. And our impact is most-felt by underserved populations who may not have anywhere else to turn to but the library, like people experiencing homelessness or incarcerated individuals. Not to overstate things, but according to the president-elect of the ALA, Sam Helmick, “We are community anchor institutions. We are pillars of democracy and society.”
For me personally, I depended on the academic databases available through my university library to write academic papers, I’ve used public-access computers to print documents when I didn’t have access to a printer, and I use my public library card to check out ebooks through Libby or Hoopla.
For a list of everything you can take advantage of at the Daniel F. Cracchiolo Law Library, see our blog post from the start of this academic year.
Finally, check out our book display in April featuring books all about libraries:
Librarians with Spines by
Library Services and Incarceration by
The New Librarianship Field Guide by
Publication Date: 2016-05-13
April is recognized as Genocide Awareness Month because there are three recognized days of remembrance for the Holocaust, the Armenian Genocide, and the Rwandan Genocide.
In honor of Genocide Awareness Month, for the month of April there is an exhibit about these three genocides curated by Niki Carpenter. There is also a book display in the law library about these three genocides. Below is a sample of some of the books in the display.
The Nuremberg Military Tribunals and the Origins of International Criminal Law by
The Key to My Neighbor's House by
The Armenian Genocide Legacy by
References
USC Shoah Foundation. Genocide Awareness Month. https://sfi.usc.edu/genocide-awareness-month
Watenpaugh, K.D. (2021, April 13). April is Genocide Awareness Month: In the Face of Ongoing and Unacknowledged Genocides, What Does that Mean? University of California, Davis: Interdepartmental Program in Human Rights Studies. https://human-rights.ucdavis.edu/news/april-genocide-awareness-month-face-ongoing-and-unacknowledged-genocides-what-does-mean
Women's History Month, which is observed annually in March, is a celebration of women's contributions to history, culture, and society across time and place. To commemorate Women's History Month here at the law library, we put together a collection of books that celebrate women's achievements in the legal field and beyond. Furthermore, this display aims to reflect a diverse array of perspectives from women of many different backgrounds.
Women have had a long, storied evolution in the legal profession, with Arabella Mansfield becoming the first woman lawyer admitted to a state bar in 1868. A few years later in 1872, Charlotte E. Ray became the first African American woman lawyer admitted to the District of Columbia state bar association. Representation in the profession was still slim for a long time, however. According to the American Bar Association, women made up only 5 percent of lawyers from 1950 to 1970. That number steadily increased over time, rising to 38 percent in 2022. Many books in the display tell stories of these first trailblazing women and their experience breaking into the field.
In curating this book display, though, I wanted to expand the focus beyond representation in the legal profession. Women, especially women of color and trans women, have long been at the forefront of social justice movements and the fight for equality. As I was deciding which books to include in the display, I wanted to be thoughtful about intersectionality and choose a selection of books that represented a wide array of experiences.
Some books in the display include:
Off with her head: three thousand years of demonizing women in power
Hood Feminism: Notes from the Women That a Movement Forgot
Keetsahnak / Our Missing and Murdered Indigenous Sisters
Feminist Theory of Violence: A Decolonial Perspective
First Fifteen: How Asian American Women Became Federal Judges
Lady justice: women, the law, and the battle to save America
How we get free: Black feminism and the Combahee River Collective
Against white feminism: notes on disruption
Tomorrow will be different: love, loss, and the fight for trans equality
We are still here: Afghan women on courage, freedom, and the fight to be heard
For even the most well-trained legal advocates, the asylum system has increasingly become a labyrinth. Now, with the writing of several restrictive executive orders by the new presidential administration, the continued existence of asylum in any form is at risk in the United States.
The Right Kind of Suffering: Gender, Sexuality, and Arab Asylum by Rhoda Kanaaneh delves into that labyrinth from the perspective of a volunteer interpreter for asylum seekers. Her non-legal perspective is in fact one of the things that makes this book so compelling, as often, those who are most familiar with the law can become habituated to the complexity and unfairness of the systems in which they work. Kanaaneh, however, sees things more from the perspective of her clients, while filtering this through her experience of many years as a legal interpreter. She laments the prohibitively complex legal system full of pitfalls and delays, designed in such a way as to make seeking asylum nearly impossible for anyone who can’t afford an attorney to help them navigate it (which at present is around 70% of all applicants). The language barriers, cultural differences, and sheer complexity of the system all work together to make asylum an incredibly long, expensive process, and for someone coming from an impoverished or war-impacted area, the resources needed to pursue this process are often not available.
Kanaaneh admits that the four subjects involved in her research were each privileged in various ways (most notably, for all having legal representation), and incredibly lucky to have succeeded in being granted asylum. At the beginning of her study, in 2012, 1 in every 4.27 applicants were granted asylum, but by the time of her writing, in 2018, that number had drastically reduced to 1 in 12.51 (p. 9). That number stands to drop exponentially this year, in 2025, as the new executive orders come into effect.
The people she chose to write about all faced gender-based or sexuality-based discrimination or violence in their home countries, which are some of the asylum applicants most likely to succeed. Men, particularly from Arabic-speaking countries, (as an Arabic-speaking interpreter, these are her clients) are often viewed as aggressors rather than victims, and do not receive the same level of sympathy from the U.S. legal system. Particularly since 9/11, this stigma has prevented Arabic men from being seen as victims worthy of being saved. They do not have, as Kanaaneh labels it, the “right kind of suffering.”
Adding to this difficulty is the double-edged sword of economic disadvantage, as Kanaaneh explains. In the U.S., asylum cannot be granted based on financial difficulty, only on persecution based on race, religion, nationality, membership in a particular social group, or political opinion (p. 30). So for those applicants who may in fact have the greatest need, facing poverty in addition to other factors, they must omit any mention of economic factors that have led to their current situation, carefully editing their life-story so as not to taint their asylum application. This omission stems from wariness in the U.S. of asylum seekers becoming burdens on the state. Ironically, if they are not able to support themselves without depending on state resources, then they may not receive the benefit of asylum. This perception has radically shifted since the inscription on the Statue of Liberty (although not legally binding) was made: "Give me your tired, your poor, /Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free.”
This idea of a good or bad kind of suffering in the eyes of the law is echoed today in the plight of the many South- and Central-American refugees waiting at the U.S. border to apply for asylum. They are often portrayed in the media as criminals or impoverished drains on state resources, making them less desirable as potential citizens. Artificial barriers are thus created to prevent these people from receiving aid, as they are seen as unable to give back. Yet is the function of humanitarian aid solely to give to those who can repay it?
This book, written on the cusp of a new era for asylum, was, for all its delays in being published, extremely timely. These delays were in fact a direct result of the undue complexity of the asylum system, as the cases she followed were repeatedly set back over many years, one of which lasted nearly six years in court.
And now, these delays may very well grow much longer as new executive orders reinstate the “Remain in Mexico” policy, which requires asylum seekers at the southern U.S. border to stay in place while they await their hearings. Previously, asylum seekers were granted temporary visas to enter the country while their cases were pending, and could even apply for work permits to earn money in the (often years’) interim. These orders also ended use of the CBP One app, which, for all its flaws, allowed applicants to apply for asylum fully online. Now, seekers must apply in person, adding another layer of complexity and delay.
At a time when the need for asylum is at its highest, rising from 27,000 applicants in 2014 to a record high of 457,000 in 2023, grant rates in the U.S. may fall to their lowest yet. It is yet to be seen what far-reaching impacts new laws around immigration will have, although the complex process that Kanaaneh documented is not likely to become any easier.
To read this book and others relating to asylum, see our book display starting in February at the Daniel F. Cracchiolo Law Library:
The Right Kind of Suffering by
Sanctuary Cities by
We Built the Wall by
Humanizing Immigration by
In the Shadow of Liberty by
As one can learn about in Professor Marcelo Rodríguez's class, Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs) often have valuable information resources about Foreign, Comparative, and International Legal (FCIL) research. For example, the Daniel F. Cracchiolo Law Library has a LibGuide about International Indigenous Resources, which has a section called "Other International Organizations," providing helpful links to NGOs researching indigenous rights, such as the Center for World Indigenous Studies and the International Work Group for Indigenous Affairs.
It may take some digging to find the right resource for your topic and find out who initially created a particular resource. Take for example the topic of Indigenous Rights in or near Environmentally Protected Areas (EPAs). The NGO, Indigenous Peoples Major Group for Sustainable Development, linked to an informative country profile resource cited by the scholars on the site, CorneredbyPAs.com, which was originally attributed to the Rights and Resources Initiative (RRI), a global coalition of 21 Partners and more than 200 collaborating international, regional, and community organizations dedicated to advancing the forestland and resource rights of Indigenous Peoples and local communities. This map and set of country profiles about EPAs is called, "Violations of Indigenous Peoples' and local communities' rights and steps towards reform in 27 countries." A map of the country profiles from this resource is below.
Source: 2018 by the Rights and Resources Initiative (RRI). This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution License CC BY 4.0.
This resource about country profiles helped me understand what some of the key terms are that could narrow my search for further information and provided me with some helpful background information. Using terms about countries and Environmentally Protected Areas from this resource, I conducted my searches in Google Scholar, in conjunction with databases and other resources in the University of Arizona catalog, filtering for scholarly articles and e-books. I focused my searches on countries with more recent and frequent violations of Indigenous Rights. Once I started finding relevant articles, I then added phrases from those articles to my search terms, such as “fortress conservation,” which led to finding more relevant sources.
FCIL research often requires creative strategies to find the most relevant results by using the most on-point key terms. Rather than re-inventing the wheel, it makes sense to first review what research has already been conducted or compiled by NGOs. Best wishes to you in your research endeavors!
Dear students,
As you start your new semester, please join your law library in celebrating Dean Miller’s service to our community. Now viewable in the lower level of the library is a sampling of correspondence, ephemera, and photos of Marc from his time as Dean of the James E. Rogers College of Law curated from our archive.
The "top shelf" of the exhibit features correspondence from Dean Miller in response to the Law School Admissions Council (LSAC) Board of Trustees formal note regarding the consideration of the University of Arizona James E. Rogers College of Law's LSAC eligibility.
Photos include images of Dean Miller from numerous College of Law events including graduation, homecoming, and orientation.
Also spotlighted is the April 2014 cover of the Arizona Attorney Magazine featuring Dean Miller on the cover. A Q&A with then incoming Dean Miller can be found here.
The Law Library thanks Marc for his service and support!
It's that time of year to start studying for final exams. When I was in law school, I found the best way to prepare for exams was by doing practice exams with hypothetical questions. That way I could issue spot and apply the rules to fact patterns in a way that simulated what it would be like during the exam. Luckily, the Law Library has practice exam material both in print and online to help you practice and prepare for exams. As always, if you have any questions, please feel free to ask us at the Reference Desk or Circulation Desk. We wish you all the best in your exam prep and success in your exams!
Print Study Aids: The print study aid bookcase behind the Circulation Desk has an abundance of resources for practicing. On the Law Library’s website, there is a new title organized, multi-tabbed LibGuide, called Print Study Aid Publications, which will show you everything we have in print, including The Question and Answers Series, The Understanding Series, The Glannon Guide to Series, The Examples and Explanations Series, Legal Writing Books, Legal Citation Books, and other hornbooks, treatises, and practice question books.
Online: Through the Law Library website, you can access the West Academic Study Aids. For access issues, go to Student Services' Study Aids page for detailed instructions.
With West Academic, you can filter by Subject, Content Type, or Series, to find the resource you need.
Filtering via Subject: If you know which class you need to study for, filtering by Subject will be the easiest as it gives you all the outlines and exam prep materials available for that subject matter. For example, you can go to 1L Subjects and pick a subject, such as Civil Procedure, to get all study aids on that subject.
Filtering via Content Type: For exam prep questions, try filtering by Content Type, and then clicking Exam Prep and Multiple Choice for some great options to peruse.
Filtering via Series: If you filter by Series, try filtering by Exam Pro and Flash cards for practice questions.
Finding a quiet space to do interviews can be tricky, especially here on campus, but the law library has you covered! You can now reserve rooms 11 and 13 (located on the lower level) as interview rooms using the law library website. Each room has a desk with chair, a desktop monitor, and one or two smaller tables with chairs, and a whiteboard.
To reserve an interview room, click on this link and select "Interview Room" from the Category drop-down menu. Be sure that you have selected "Law Library" as the location. To select a time, place your curser over the desired start time. If less time is desired, click the dropdown menu at the bottom of the screen and change the time. Click "Submit Times" to continue the reservation process.
Please note that the interview rooms are only available for online meetings or interviews; they are NOT a study space. Please use the regular Study Rooms for that purpose.
If you have any problem with a reservation, please call Circulation at 520-626-8023 during regular business hours or email circulation@law-arizona.libanswers.com/.
Happy interviewing!
What is Free Speech Week?
It is a non-partisan event created in 2005 by The Media Institute and The National Association of Broadcasters’ Education Foundation to raise public awareness of the importance of freedom of speech. This year it is the week of October 21st to 27th.
What is Free Speech?
Freedom of speech is defined by the First Amendment of the Constitution, but it does have complicated nuances depending on context.
There are so many fascinating topics about free speech to explore. How does freedom of speech intersect with human rights and civil rights laws? What are the constraints of national security on speech? What is government speech? What kind of speech is allowed in K-12 schools? How is free speech affected by the internet, disinformation, and libel? What is the history of free speech in the United States? How does free speech law impact art? How does it affect land use regulation? What are the limits of speech in higher education? What are the rights of lawyers regarding freedom of speech?
University of Arizona resources about Free Speech
To learn more, start by checking out the book display in the Law Library about Free Speech, which has books about many of the topics above.
First Freedoms by
Publication Date: 2006-07-04
Fire's Guide to Free Speech on Campus by
Publication Date: 2005-01-01
Voice of Justice by
