W Richard (Rick) West

I am a citizen of the Cheyenne and Arapaho Tribes and a member of the Society of Southern Cheyenne Peace Chiefs. I have devoted my professional life and much of my personal life to working on behalf of Native legal rights and in the national and international museum communities. The broad range of issues has involved legal, cultural, educational, and governmental issues. For approximately the first half of my professional career, I was an associate attorney or partner in private law firms in Washington, D.C. and Albuquerque, New Mexico that served as general counsel, Washington counsel, or special counsel to Native tribes and communities in the United States. The second half of my professional career shifted to the national and international museum communities. I served as the director of major museums in Washington, D.C. and Los Angeles. Both institutions held substantial and significant collections of Native cultural patrimony. The very important connection between lawyering and museums, on the surface somewhat disparate careers, is that both reflect a personal and professional commitment to the protection and preservation of Native rights. As a practicing attorney, the prerogatives and rights at issue were Constitutional and legal in nature, while my career directing museums holding Native collections involved an associated focus on the cultural rights of contemporary Native communities from throughout the Americas.