California universities slow to return human remains and artifacts to tribes, audit finds

The University of California is not moving fast enough to return human remains and cultural artifacts to Indigenous tribes, the state auditor said in a new report it released on Thursday.

The report is the second in three years from the state auditor on the UC’s compliance with a 1990 federal law governing the return of Native American remains and a similar 2001 state law.

It found that despite some recent improvements, the university system is not doing enough to return items, some of which the UC system obtained more than a century ago.

Four UC campuses — Berkeley, Riverside, Santa Barbara and San Diego — have large collections, some of which have not been reviewed to determine just how many items each campus has in its possession, acting State Auditor Michael Tilden wrote in a letter to Gov. Gavin Newsom and legislative leaders.

Tilden wrote that the collections are so large, they won’t be repatriated back to the Indigenous tribes, descendants, or other museums for “at least a decade.”

Some Indigenous tribes have long awaited items that were found and taken to universities over the decades.

UC Berkeley repatriated the remains of 20 tribal members and nearly 140 cultural items in January from the Wiyot people, a tribe that lived in what is now Humboldt Bay. White settlers attacked the the tribe in 1860, massacring between 80 to 150 people. Most of them were women, children and elderly.

UC Berkeley expanded funding for its efforts and is in the process of hiring four additional employees for its work in complying with the Native American Graves and Repatriation Act, said Sabrina Agarwal, a UC Berkeley bio-archaeologist.

“We are committed to repatriating all of the ancestral remains and sacred belongings in our holdings at a pace determined by meaningful consultation under the state and federal laws and the systemwide repatriation policy.” Agarwal said.

But the auditor found inconsistent approaches to complying with the federal and state laws.

“The university’s Office of the President has not yet ensured that campuses have the guidance necessary to return their collections in a timely and consistent manner,” Tilden said, adding that while Berkeley has made some progress in returning items from its collections, both Riverside and San Diego are far behind, after recently discovering large collections in their possession they didn’t know existed.

Tilden also said the Office of the President has not ensured that the four UC campuses with artifacts prioritize plans to return items or properly fund them. Those plans were created by the UC Office of the President in 2020,

“Because of the uncertainty surrounding the funding necessary to support campuses’ repatriation efforts, we believe this approach is shortsighted and may undermine recent efforts by the university to further repatriation,” Tilden wrote in his letter.

Both the federal repatriation law and the state equivalent law require that universities have open dialogue with tribes and and Native Hawaiian organizations, according to a US Senate report.

The University of California issued its own policy in Dec. 2021 after consulting with tribes. It aims to ensures further transparency and accountability.

The University of California in a written statement said it appreciates the state auditor’s recommendations, and the university system is committed to implementing all state recommendations.

“The fundamental value and priority of facilitating the repatriation of Native American and Native Hawaiian human remains and cultural items undergirds our policy and we must and will continue to look for ways to make real and meaningful progress in our efforts,” read the statement by UC.

This story was originally published November 18, 2022 at 6:15 AM.