Robert T. Coulter, Class of 1966

With a commitment both morally deep and globally broad, you have fought your entire professional life to improve the lives of indigenous peoples. Straight from Columbia Law School, you joined an Indian legal organization working on behalf of Mohawk clients. When that office closed for lack of funds, you continued working …out of your car. In 1978you co founded the Indian Law Resource Center, which supports and advocates for indigenous peoples throughout North, Central, and South America. You have helped prevent whole communities from being moved and their lands destroyed. You have protected Indian religious freedoms. You helped acquire and protect land in Florida for the cultural and religious use by Seminoles and won recognition of all Mayagna lands in Nicaragua through legal action before the lnter American Court on Human Rights. The Y:momami of Brazil were being murdered for the gold on their land, until you and others stepped in. You are admired for promoting peaceful resolution to conflict and for providing the intellectual backbone of the indigenous rights movement through your writing. After decades of being criticized, your ideas are now increasingly embraced. The first U.N. meeting on indigenous peoples of the Western Hemisphere, which you helped organize, led years later to establishment of a permanent forum on the worldwide issue. And you drafted the pending U.N. Declaration on the Rights oflndigenious Peoples. At a time when people seem to change careers as often as clothes, your many years of dogged attention to the details of this complicated work have earned the deep thanks and admiration of all indigenous communities and of all who care about human rights.