Screening: “Shash Jaa’: ‘Bears Ears’”

Featuring discussion with Anna Elza Brady (UO Law '18), former policy and communications strategist for Utah Diné Bikéyah.

Shásh Jaa’ is nearly 1.9 million acres of wilderness in southeastern Utah that is sacred ancestral land to local Native American tribes. In 2015, five nations came together to form the Bears Ears Inter-Tribal Coalition, an effort to protect their homeland from development and destruction. The film follows the story of the coalition as they lobby the Obama Administration to designate Bears Ears a national monument. That effort was successful. Unfortunately, the Trump administration has drastically reduced the acreage of the monument. Join us as we screen the film and hear the perspective of the former policy and communications strategist for Utah Diné Bikéyah, a nonprofit organization that works toward healing of people and the Earth by supporting indigenous communities in protecting their culturally significant, ancestral lands.

Anna Elza Brady is the former policy and communications strategist for Utah Diné Bikéyah and currently works as a law clerk to Washington Supreme Court​ Justice Susan Owens. A Wayne Morse Law Fellow, Brady graduated from the University of Oregon’s School of Law in 2018 with a concentration in environmental and natural resource law.

This event is part of the Wayne Morse Center's inquiry into Borders, Migration, and Belonging. It is cosponsored by the Native American Law Student Association.