Michigamua’s Broken 1989 Promise

Much of the talk about Michigamua, and the crux of the lawsuit filed last week in Washtenaw County Court, is a 1989 agreement between the university, Michigamua, and Native American students, that the organization would abandon all references to Native American Culture. In 2000, 11 years after that agreement was signed, the Student of Color Coalition discovered that the organization’s “Wigwam” in the Michigan Union still held many authentic and imitation Native American artifacts in violation of their agreement to abandoned this part of their identity.

Before now, I have only read about this agreement, and never seen a copy for myself. Yet a copy of the lawsuit sent to me contained it as an addendum. I’ve already run the text of the complaint, but here’s an image of the 1989 agreement in question. (Or click on the image to the right.) It’s quite straight forward, with the organization promising to eliminate “all references to Native American culture and pseudo-culture and extensions and parodies thereof, with the one exception being the name, Michigamua, for now and forever.”

The Daily has recently published some commentary about the meaning of this document, their editorial board weighing in on the side of activists in January. Here are a couple opposing op-eds which ran in response:
> ” Michigamua has troubled past”
> “Looking to the future by learning from the past”

Heurich House Update

There’s some good news for the Heurich House, a beautiful victorian mansion in DC that is facing auction if the nonprofit foundation that runs the house can’t come up with $250,000. Since I wrote about the home’s plight in January the group has raised $70,000 towards their goal and won pledges for more funds and support to come.

Also, today DCist reports the bank is giving the organization a 30-day extension to raise the remaining $180,000. I’ve already given $10 and considering another donation, but if you needed convincing there’s nothing better than a recent blog post by Mike Grass who makes the excellent argument the house is worth saving not only because it would be expensive and difficult to recover it’s current state if the home’s contents are cleared out, but also because it is a unique symbol of the non-federal side of DC. I think he’s absolutely right: the house faces peril partly because it was built by a brewer, and “not a naval hero, not a granddaughter of Martha Washington, not even a Gilded Age mining millionaire turned politician …” And it is precisely for that reason, in addition to its beauty, that it deserves preservation.

For more information see brewmasterscastle.com.

Remodeling Blog

While I blog here about who-knows-what, my twin brother has been busily maintaining his own blog about his work remodeling a tiny 1930s(?)-era home he purchased in Haverhill, Massaccussets. I have been quite impressed with his energy and skill in the project and am looking forward to the final product.

February Blogger Meetup Attendance

Here’s who signed in:

• Total Information Awareness
• Candy Sandwich
• a13x.net
• Always Write
• Grateful Dating
• Articulatory Loop
• Brokekid.net
• Velvet in Dupont
• Rhinestone Cowgirl
• Latest Obsession
• Yeah … I Said It
• Yeah, So I’m
• Nicolasix.com
• Elliot Teel
• Movering

If I missed you, drop a comment.

Studying the Political Web

Two reports have recently been issued in the field of nonprofit technology that I think are important to point out. Here’s the first:

In the for-profit dot.com world, the bottom line is easy to measure — it comes down to dollars and cents. For nonprofit organizations, success is more difficult to define. How many people were educated? Informed? Served? Engaged? Activated? How much money was raised? Did legislative policy change? Corporate policy? Public opinion?

The eNonprofit Benchmarks Study is the first of its kind look at the effectiveness of major American nonprofit organizations using the Internet to raise money and influence public policy. The study is a tool that nonprofits can use to measure and compare their online performance to other organizations’ online programs.

Download the eNonprofit Benchmarks Study

Also, a very interesting group called the New Politics Institute has just issued a report in “Mastering New Media Trends”:

Since its founding in May of last year, the New Politics Institute has has produced a series of reports and hosted a variety of events to help progressives understand and master the dynamic 21st century media landscape. Today, we are pleased to release “Mastering New Media Trends,” a fifteen-point strategic checklist for progressive organizations to use to stay on top of trends in television, radio, newspapers and the Internet and when thinking about where, when and how to buy media. The core message is this: if you are buying your advertising as you have in the past you are likely spending ineffectively and paying too much for too little impact. Advertising markets have changed, and in every class of advertising there are now tools available which allow advertisers to purchase more targeted audiences – often at lower cost.

Check out the Mastering New Media Trends report

Full Text of Doe vs. Michigamua

Below, for your reading pleasure, is the complete text of a lawsuit filed against Michigamua and the University of Michigan last week in Washtenaw County Circuit Court. The formatting is a bit screwy — sorry, this was a rush file conversion job.

Read the rest of this entry »

Meetup Tonight

Sorry for the late notice. There’s a DC blogger meetup tonight at Pharaoh’s in Adams Morgan at 7pm. More info on the Meetup.com site.