Nazune Menka

Nazune Menka

Assistant Professor of Law
Faculty Director, Northwest Center for Indigenous Law

 Sullivan Hall 424

 206-398-4007

Email Nazune

Curriculum Vitae

AREAS OF EXPERTISE

  • Indigenous Peoples, Law, and the United States
  • Tribal Law, Sovereignty, and Self-Determination
  • Constitutional Law
  • Decolonization & Settler Colonialism
  • Environmental Law & Policy
  • Legal History
  • International Human Rights & Indigenous Peoples

EDUCATION

  • J.D., University of Arizona, James E. Rogers School of Law, Indigenous Peoples Law & Policy Certificate, 2018
  • M.S., University of Arizona, Soil, Water, & Environmental Science, 2013
  • B.A., North Carolina State University, Communications with a concentration in Public Relations, 2002

Biography

Professor Menka is a Denaakk’e (Koyukon Athabaskan) and Lumbee Assistant Professor of Law who teaches and writes about Indigenous Peoples and Native Nations, constitutional law, legal history, property law, and environmental law and policy. Her scholarship and research aim to support the self-determination of Native Nations, and Indigenous Peoples forcibly removed to, or otherwise incorporated within, what is now known as the United States. By building coalitions, legitimating a plurality of worldviews, and increasing self-determination for Native Nations, peoples, and communities, Professor Menka believes a more just and equitable society is possible. She currently serves as the Faculty Director for the Northwest Center for Indigenous Law at Seattle University School of Law.

Before joining SU Law, Professor Menka served as the Executive Director of the Center for Indigenous Law & Justice at Berkeley Law. Prior to serving as Executive Director, Professor Menka served in several capacities at Berkeley Law including in the Environmental Law Clinic as a Supervising Attorney, as a Lecturer, and as the Tribal Cultural Resources Project Policy Fellow. While at UC Berkeley Professor Menka also created and taught a popular new undergraduate Legal Studies course, Decolonizing UC Berkeley. Prior to her legal career, Professor Menka completed her M.S. in Soil, Water, and Environmental Science on the health impacts of arsenic and lead from abandoned mining sites utilizing aqueous bench chemistry, x-ray fluorescence, and other particle accelerator methodologies.

Professor Menka values public service and has served as Board Treasurer for several non-profit organizations, including, the California Indian Law Association, the Water Protector Legal Collective, and the Society for Advancement of Chicanos/Hispanics & Native Americans in Science. She has worked on policy issues in the Alaska and Hawaii state legislatures and has completed various intern and management programs including at the Department of Energy, the Environmental Protection Agency, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and the U.S. House Committee on Natural Resources. She is a member of the State Bar of Michigan.

Publications

  • On Constitutional Avoidance & Colonialism (work in progress).
  • Indigenous Diplomacies in Alaska (work in progress). 
  • The Reparative Return of Treatymaking? Native Nations, Legal Norms, & the U.S., 30 Tex. J. C.L.C.R. 2 (forthcoming 2025).
  • The LandBack Movement: Native Nations and the Reclamation of Ancestral Lands, 39 Am. Bar Ass’n Nat. Res. & Env’t 3 (Mar. 07, 2025) (ABA Member link here).
  • Financial Self-Determination for Native Nations Assuming Federal Programming, in The Regulatory Review, The Supreme Court’s 2023-2024 Regulatory Term (July 25, 2024) (online essay)(link here).
  • Native Nation Resistance to the Machinations of Settler Colonial Democracy, 59 Harvard Civil Rights-Civil Liberties L. Rev. 2, 141-174 (2024)(link here).
  • Decolonizing the Legal Academy, in Integrating Doctrine & Diversity: Inclusion & Equity Beyond the First Year (Nicole P. Dyszlewski et al. eds., 2024).
  • Nazune Menka & Laura Spitz, Using Vulnerability Theory to Reconceive the Relationships Between the Native Nations, the United States, and the States, in Law, Vulnerability, and the Responsive State: Beyond Equality and Liberty (Martha Fineman & Laura Spitz eds., 2023).
  • Overturning Roe: The Supreme(ly colonial) Court, Cal. Indian Law Ass’n Legal J., 21-23 (Fall 2022)(link here). 
  • Federal Courts, Tribal Sovereign Immunity, & Tribally Owned Businesses, Cal. Indian Law Ass’n Legal J., 38-40 (Summer 2020)(link here).
  • Bioaccessibility, Release Kinetics, and Molecular Speciation of Arsenic and Lead in Geo-Dusts from the Iron King Mine Federal Superfund Site in Humboldt, Arizona, 29 Rev. On Env’t Health 23 (2014)(link here).

Activity

  • Dave Miller, Trump administration attempts to use 19th century Native American case to overturn birthright citizenship, Oregon Public Broadcasting: Think Out Loud (Apr. 07, 2025) (Podcast guest) (link here)
  • Seattle U, Social Justice Monday, Executive Power as a Tool of Inclusion & Exclusion, Presenter (April 2025)
  • Seattle U, Racial Equity Summit Futures Lab, Liberation From or Through the Law, Presenter (April 2025)
  • University of Texas, Texas Journal on Civil Rights Civil Liberties Symposium, Indigenous Rights in 2025, Global Indigeneity and Author Panel Presenter, Austin TX (March 2025)
  • Women in Ranching, Rooted in the Land, The Confluence: Women and the Land: Legal, Cultural, and Environmental Leadership, Presenter, Paicines, CA (March 2025)
  • SU Law American Indian Law Journal Symposium, Re-Indigenizing the Law: Indigenous Law in the Pacific Northwest, Presenter (March 2025)
  • Art, Hughes, Trump 2025 How It Started How It’s Going, Native America Calling (Jan. 23, 2025) (national radio broadcast and Podcast guest)(link here).
  • Anna V. Smith, What a second Trump term could mean for tribes, High Country News 14-15 (Jan. 2025) (link here).
  • Berlin Museum of Natural History, Center for Humanities of Nature, Heritage and Justice: Unpacking Legal Narratives in Natural History Lecture Series, Mitigating Colonialism: Indigenous Peoples, Legal Pluralism, & Restitution, Presenter (Jan. 2025)
  • SeattleU Law Northwest Center for Indigenous Law, UC Berkeley Center for Indigenous Law & Justice, New Voices in Citizenship, Democracy & Indigeneity Workshop, Organizer/Moderator/Presenter, Indigenous Diplomacies in Alaska Berkeley, CA (Nov. 2024).
  • Native Action Network, Women’s Leadership Forum Keynote, Reclaiming Indigenous Land, Language & Law, Auburn, WA (Oct. 2024)
  • Indigi-Grad FEWS, Indigenous Excellence Speaker Series Presenter, Re-Indigenizing Land, Language & Law Berkeley, CA (Sept. 2024)
  • ASU-UCLA Gathering of Indigenous Legal Scholars, Indigenous Diplomacies in Alaska, Presenter Los Angeles, CA (Aug. 2024)
  • Harvard Civil Rights-Civil Liberties Law Review Symposium, Author Panel Presenter, Cambridge, MA (April 2024)
  • UC Berkeley School of Law, Justice, the Law, and Storytelling: A Conversation with Yurok Chief Judge Abby Abinanti and New Yorker Journalist Sarah Stillman, Organizer/Moderator (March 2024)
  • UC Berkeley School of Law, The Scandal of Cal: A Book Talk with Author Tony Platt, Presenter (November 2023)
  • Tyler Walicek, UC Berkeley Holds Thousands of Native Remains Despite Repatriation Requests, truthout (June 25, 2023).
  • Lucia Umeki-Martinez, ‘Decolonizing UC Berkeley’: Professor Nazune Menka creates course on settler colonialism, The Daily Californian (March 20, 2023).
  • Be the Change Podcast, Nazune Menka, Thelton E. Henderson Center for Social Justice at Berkeley Law (March 2023).
  • Chrissa Olson, Study finds Indigenous land tenure improves environmental outcomes in Atlantic Forest, The Daily Californian (January 20, 2023).
  • Exhibiting Kinship Podcast, Episode 7 with Nazune Menka, (July 29, 2022).
  • Nazune Menka, Righting the Relationships: Embracing an Indigenous worldview of climate change, UU WORLD (Winter 2022).
  • Sherry Karabin, The unique mission of law schools at land-grant universities, PreLaw, at 20-21 (January 28, 2022).
  • Nazune Menka, Honoring Our History: Truth, Healing, Reconciliation, Reparation, Cal Athletics Belonging Blog (Nov. 29, 2021).
  • Nazune Menka, Why Deb Haaland’s confirmation as interior secretary is so important to Indigenous communities, Berkeley Blog (Mar. 15, 2021).
  • Nazune Menka, A call to action on National Native American Heritage Day, Berkeley Blog (Nov. 25, 2020).