Native American Rights Fund announces Matthew Campbell in new leadership role

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Native American Rights Fund: New Deputy Director Position at NARF

Friday, June 10, 2022

Indianz.Com

The Native American Rights Fund has announced Matthew Campbell as deputy director, a new leadership position within the largest legal non-profit firm in Indian Country.

Campbell, an attorney, is a citizen of the Native Village of Gambell, based in Alaska. He has worked for NARF since 2013.

“We’re pleased that Matthew Campbell will provide an additional prong of leadership to the Native American Rights Fund as our Deputy Director,” John Echohawk, a citizen of the Pawnee Nation who serves as executive director of NARF, said on Friday.

“As the premier national legal defense team for tribal governments and Native people, our nonprofit must steward resources, time, and energy as productively as possible,” said Echohawk, an attorney who has has worked as NARF since its inception in 1970 and has served as executive director since 1977.

Matthew L. Campbell serves as deputy director of the Native American Rights Fund. Photo courtesy NARF

“The new position Matthew Campbell has shouldered allows NARF to plan and coordinate strategies and resources that are constantly in motion,” Echohawk concluded.

“I’m deeply honored to serve Native people in this role,” Campbell said of his leadership position. “I envision this position as a fantastic opportunity to help the Native American Rights Fund build the capacity to broaden our support for Indian Country as well as support our attorneys and staff in undertaking this important work.”

Campbell, a graduate of the Sandra Day O’Connor College of Law at Arizona State University, joined NARF as a staff attorney. He has worked on a wide range of cases benefiting tribes and their interests, from securing water rights settlements to protecting sacred places.

“I started working on cases related to Indian education and advocating for the advancement of Indian education,” Campbell said in a video released by NARF. “I’ve had the opportunity to work on Indian water rights and water settlements.”

“I’ve worked on sacred places work, to protect our sacred places and then had the opportunity to represent Native folks — our veterans, our elders — in protecting the right to vote in North Dakota,” he said.

“I also had the opportunity to sue the Trump administration over the Keystone XL Pipeline and the Bears Ears National Monument,” Campbell noted. In both instances, tribal advocacy resulted in the end of the pipeline project and the restoration of the original boundaries of Bears Ears in Utah.

NARF is headquartered in Boulder, Colorado.