American Indian graduates of the University of Wyoming school of law were urged to keep their identity intact in an "alienated" U.S. society.

Gerry Spence, an attorney who used to live near the Wind River Reservation, invoked the words of Shoshone Chief Washakie. "The freedom of American Indians depends upon their education," Spence said at an honoring program for the eight graduates.

Spence said the students should hold onto their Indian identity. "To be successful in the white man's world, you have to give up those sacred ideals that belong to a tribe: the respect for nature and the environment, and the compassion and love for other human beings," he was quoted as saying. "Those are the great values that come out of a tribe, and those are the values that America has lost. We are alienated."

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Use education as weapon, Spence tells Indian grads (AP 5/18)