Salazar Names Barker, Farm to Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Committee

WASHINGTON -- Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar today named Alexander Wade Barker and LindaLee “Cissy” Kuuleinai Farm to serve on the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Committee, which monitors and reviews the return of Native American human remains and cultural objects to descendents and tribes.

“Both Alex Barker and Cissy Farm have long experience and outstanding credentials,” Salazar said. “They both will be a huge asset to the committee as it undertakes its vitally important work ensuring the proper review, inventory and repatriation of Native American remains and artifacts.”

Alex Barker currently serves as director of the Museum of Art and Archaeology and adjunct associate professor in the Departments of Anthropology, and Art History and Archaeology at the University of Missouri. Prior to that appointment, he served first as section head of anthropology and curation of North American archaeology and later as vice president for collections and research at the Milwaukee Public Museum.

Since 2004, he has been co-principal investigator for the Pecica-Santul Mare Project in Romania. He also has served as field director for numerous archeological projects in the United States.

During the course of his career, he has served on national museum and scientific organization committees and task forces that have addressed professional ethics, as well as culturally unidentifiable Native American human remains and the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act (NAGPRA).

Barker was nominated to the Review Committee by the American Anthropological Association, the American Association of Museums, and the Society for American Archaeology.

LindaLee (Cissy) Farm is a partner at Goodsill Anderson Quinn & Stifel, LLP, a Hawaii-based law firm. She concentrates her law practice in the area of commercial litigation. She has handled commercial and business disputes, professional liability defense, personal injury and wrongful death claims, products liability, Native Hawaiian rights, land use, and appellate advocacy.

Since 2003, she has represented the Bernice Pauahi Bishop Museum on a variety of NAGPRA issues, including as lead counsel in litigation.

In November 2010, she was a panelist in a session at the two-day symposium NAGPRA at 20, held in Washington, DC. That session, "NAGPRA and the Courts", discussed the use of court cases to further the purpose of the Act as civil rights legislation and the future of NAGPRA in the courts.

Cissy Farm was nominated to the Review Committee by the Natural Science Collections Alliance.

Barker and Farm succeed Dan Monroe and Alan Goodman. They will serve four-year terms.

The Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Review Committee was established under NAGPRA "to monitor and review the implementation of the inventory and identification process and repatriation activities." Members of the panel request information on compliance with the law and make annual reports to Congress. They also hear disputes on factual matters to resolve repatriation issues among Indian tribes, Alaska Native villages and corporations, and Native Hawaiian organizations with museums and federal agencies.