Does the Federal government or any state of the United States have an affirmative action program for American Indians? Are there any major corporations which do?
I know that the reservations provide Indian preference.
Any of the listed “minority” ethnic groups (Black, Hispanic, Alaskan Native or American Indian is, I think, the way it’s listed on forms) do meet federal standards for any affirmative action programs that still exist. There’s also gender, for professional positions, with women also being considered as affirmative action hires. Of course, there are very few such programs left (except maybe for government agencies). I worked for a number of years in one or another Institution of Higher Education. They useta joke about wanting to hire a Native American woman named (insert your own stereotypical old-fashioned first name common in the Black community (yes, even some black administrators).
Reservations try to hire their own because unemployment rates on nearly all reservations range from 50% to more than 80%. If you were a rez-dwelling NDN, wouldn’t you be in favor of trying to reduce unemployment in your extended family first (which is what it amounts to, in most of them), rather than having to give your brother/cousin/nephew/etc. handouts all the time (assuming you had it to give)? Historically, most of the rez NDNs with jobs either hold local, low-skill, low-paying jobs, or have jobs out of “town”, and are away from home for weeks (sometimes months) at a time. The Mohawk “high steel” construction workers are a case in point.
There are some jobs that reservations hafta hire outsiders for, as nobody on the rez has the requisite education. In such cases, they may try to hire Native Americans of other nations. Some of the nations (e.g., Choctaw, in Mississippi) have become owners of large enterprises, thanks to the gaming situation. They try to employ their own, but even more than that, they push all their kids to get really good educations. They’ve started or brought in other businesses, and have employees of all ethnicities in both the casinos and factories. He may have flaws I don’t know about, but their current chief seems to be intent on being a good citizen of MS as well as a good leader for his people; they’ve had a very good effect on the prosperity of their area, and are apparently planning to increase it. Exactly the opposite of how they were treated.
Remember that NDNs have historically been discriminated against just as Blacks were. (You may never have seen it at work unless you’ve lived near a rez, but in some regions of the country - e.g., the Dakotas, Michigan’s Upper Peninsula, the Four Corners region - it’s been a fact of life since Whites first moved in.)
The Feds have done a fairly good job if you want to look soley at hiring quotas
There are special procurement regulations that make it much easier to hire native American (And “Alaska Native” feds words not mine) Businesses through the federal procurement process.
There are some good scholarship programs available only to Native Americans. If you have an NA in your family tree, and you have kids headed to college, it is really worth checking out.
That used to be true. Now the scholarships are only available to people who can prove they’re on tribal rolls. And there aren’t that many doing it. The state of Michigan used to have that benefit at all state universities & colleges. I don’t think they do anymore, although last I knew, University of Michigan still did. Mostly the states that do are ones with large NA populations, and not too much prejudice.