On Tuesday, September 30, 2025, from 12:00 p.m. to 1:30 p.m. PST, join the University of Oregon's Environmental and Natural Resources Law Center (ENR) and cross-campus partners for the 19th Annual Rennard Strickland Lecture. The free and public lecture will take place in person in Room 110 of the Oregon Law building and livestreamed via Zoom Webinar.
The ENR Center is thrilled to welcome Ms. Amy Bowers Cordalis (Yurok), Co-Founder and Co-Director of the Ridges to Riffles Indigenous Conservation Group, as this year's speaker.
Amy Bowers Cordalis is a devoted advocate for Indigenous rights and environmental restoration. A member of the Yurok Tribe and ceremony family from the village of Rek-Woi at the mouth of the Klamath River, she is a fisherwoman, attorney, and mother deeply rooted in the traditions of her people. Through Ridges to Riffles, Cordalis leads efforts to support Tribes in protecting their sovereignty, lands, and waters, including the historic Klamath Dam Removal project—one of the world's largest river restoration and dam removal initiatives. Former General Counsel for the Yurok Tribe and a former Staff Attorney with the Native American Rights Fund, Cordalis has earned honors as a UN Champion of the Earth and Time 100 climate leader. She is the author of The Water Remembers: My Indigenous Family's Fight to Save a River and a Way of Life (forthcoming 2025).
Through its Native Environmental Sovereignty Project, the ENR Center established the Rennard Strickland Lecture series in 2006 to honor the legacy of former Oregon Law Professor and Dean Rennard Strickland, who retired that year and passed in 2021.
An Osage citizen of Cherokee Nation, Strickland contributed mightily to the field of Indian Law, the practice of legal education, and Oregon Law's ENR and Indian Law programs, throughout his lifetime. In keeping with his assertion that "[i]f there is to be a post-Columbian future—a future for any of us—it will be an Indian future..." (Tonto's Revenge, 1997), the Rennard Strickland Lecture series has a thematic focus on Indigenous environmental-legal leadership and Tribal sovereignty in the twenty-first century.
The 19th Annual Rennard Strickland Lecture is co-sponsored by the University of Oregon Department of Native American and Indigenous Studies, the Native American Law Students Association, and the Wayne Morse Center for Law and Politics.
Past lecturers include:
Professor Mary Wood, University of Oregon School of Law
Professor William Rodgers, University of Washington School of Law
Professor Rebecca Tsosie, University of Arizona Law
Former Assistant Secretary for Indian Affairs Larry Echo Hawk, Department of the Interior
Former Solicitor Hillary Tompkins, Department of the Interior
Former Deputy Solicitor for Indian Affairs Patrice Kunesh, Department of the Interior
Professor Robert Anderson, University of Washington School of Law (now serving as Principal Deputy Solicitor, Department of the Interior)
Former Assistant Secretary for Indian Affairs Kevin Washburn, Department of the Interior
Professor Robert Williams, University of Arizona Law School
Professor Carole Goldberg, University of California Los Angeles Law School
Dean James Anaya, University of Colorado School of Law
Professor Gerald Torres, Yale Law School
Mary Kathryn Nagle, Pipestem Law
President Fawn Sharp, Quinault Tribe and President of the National Congress of American Indians
Professor Stacy Leeds, Arizona State University Sandra Day O’Connor College of Law
Professor Matthew L.M. Fletcher, University of Michigan Law School
Dean Elizabeth Kronk Warner, University of Utah S.J. Quinney College of Law
Director Charles F. "Chuck" Sams III, National Park Service (now serving as Oregon Member, Northwest Power and Conservation Council)