12 August 2009

Tribal Gambling Pays for Scholarships

College-educated tribe members return to work for tribal businesses

Terri Davis is using her education to help other Oneidas land jobs.

By Matt Herrick
Staff Writer

Washington — Hundreds of American Indians receive the full cost of their college educations thanks to tribal gambling enterprises.

Since 1988, more than 200 of 562 federally recognized American Indian tribes have initiated casino gambling, often referred to as gaming by the industry. In 2008, these tribes took in gross gambling revenues of nearly $26 billion, according to the National Indian Gaming Association.

Of course, revenue from gambling might be viewed negatively by some people. Nearly 60 percent of Americans over the age of 60 say that it is wrong for others to gamble, according to a Pew Research Center study published in January 2007.  Younger Americans think differently: Only one-third of those age 18–25 disapprove of gambling. Middle-aged Americans fall in the middle, with 40 percent of people in their 30s, 40s and 50s disapproving. But no matter what Americans think of casino gambling, there is little dispute about the impact that its profits are having on Indian tribes.

The money has helped some tribes establish scholarships, career counseling and other business-development services for members. It helps school dropouts attain high school-equivalency degrees years after dropping out.

With higher-education degrees and newfound skills, Indians are returning home to work for tribal businesses and contributing to their communities.

AN UNLIKELY BENEFACTOR

Terri Davis, a member of the Oneida Nation in upstate New York, counsels other Oneidas in career skills and helps with job placement. Davis, 50, lives on the Oneida Nation homeland. When she was young, her family called it “the reservation.” The word implied a place where Indians were unemployed in large numbers, struggling with alcohol abuse and living in shacks with peeling tar paper walls, she said.

“Unfortunately,” Davis said, “we were those Indians.”

Davis’s uncommon blue eyes led her Oneida grandmother to plead with her to leave the homeland and “join society” to escape the discrimination that has plagued American Indians for centuries.

But Davis did not leave. And, although she dropped out of high school at 17 to begin raising her first of three children, she did not forsake her dream of receiving an education. She returned to school and slowly, over the course of 17 years, earned associate and bachelor’s degrees. Today, she is on course to begin her master’s studies. She always believed in herself. But she found the means to achieve her educational goals as profits from Oneida casinos created greater prosperity for tribal members. Now she works with other Oneida members who have returned to the homeland after living for decades without ties to the tribe. “We’re helping them to get jobs and get on their feet,” she said.

A FOUNDATION

Indian gambling began in earnest in 1988, when President Ronald Reagan signed the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act. It is underpinned by a 1987 Supreme Court decision stating that tribes possess indisputable rights, or sovereignty, like states. Sovereignty for tribes has its roots in the Constitution.

Melissa Bembry said that when she decided to get serious about college, the tribe was there to offer support.

The 1988 law confirmed the right of all federally recognized Indian tribes to pursue gambling activities on their reservation land if the land is within a state that already allows the same gambling activities.

Even then, federally recognized tribes must have land on which to build gambling facilities. Only 130 reservations exist in the United States. Some tribes have raised the funds necessary to purchase reservation land. Once land is secured, tribes must also negotiate gambling compacts with state governments and contend with consumer and business groups opposed to gambling enterprises for moral and competitive reasons.

The Gaming Act allowed the Oneida Nation, for example, to secure a gambling compact and build a casino on its recognized homeland. The tribe uses the casino as an economic engine to generate a variety of successful enterprises, including convenience stores and cattle farms. All tribal businesses contribute to meeting the nation’s education needs, from preschool to college.

According to an Oneida Nation spokesman, more than half of the tribe’s adult members have sought “advanced learning” since the tribe began offering scholarships in 1990. Turning Stone Resort and Casino, the main enterprise, opened in 1993. That generated the revenue that enabled 17 Oneidas to earn college diplomas in 2008: one doctorate, three master’s, 10 bachelor’s and three associate degrees. Another 77 tribe members are enrolled in college.

ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT AND TRIBAL PRIDE

The gambling industry has given some American Indians a renewed interest in their tribal heritage. Jason Caron, 26, remembers hearing stories as a kid about the Mohegan tribe that lived nearby on a 283-hectare reservation in eastern Connecticut. Mohegan members taught lessons on Native American culture at community centers and local schools like his. Then, in 1994, the federal government recognized the Mohegan tribe, granting it sovereignty to negotiate with the Connecticut state government. The result was Mohegan Sun, the world’s second-largest casino, located in a high-traffic area between Boston and New York, underscoring the importance of location as a major factor in tribal gambling’s affluence.

Seventy percent of tribal gambling revenues are concentrated in one-fifth of the gambling tribes. Hundreds of tribes are scattered across the United States, but just a handful have cleared the gauntlet of federal recognition, property holdings in a populated area and a state gambling compact.

When Caron’s family embraced its Indian bloodlines and enrolled with the tribe, family members were also able to share in its good fortune. Caron earned a bachelor’s degree in architecture and now works as a project manager for the tribe’s property development team. He coaches Mohegan youth sports and regularly attends powwows. His younger brother is enrolled in college, thanks to a scholarship from the tribe.

Tribal scholarships have the same basic requirements regardless of tribal affiliation: A recipient must graduate from high school, gain acceptance in a two- or four-year college and maintain at least a C+ average.

Although substantial economic gaps remain between America’s native population and the rest of the U.S. population, a 2005 Harvard University study on American Indian economic development between 1990 and 2000 showed rising incomes, falling poverty and lower unemployment rates than in previous decades. The percentage of college graduates and high school graduates is higher in gambling communities than on reservations that don’t have gambling businesses.

“I COULD HAVE BEEN PRESIDENT”

Two generations after her grandmother attended a boarding school meant to replace her Indian cultural practices with traditional American values, Melissa Bembry diligently attends Oneida ceremonial services and celebrations with her family. The 27-year-old received a scholarship from the tribe and works in information technology at a new health care service center.

While Bembry furthers her career, her children spend their weekdays nearby at the tribe’s day care center for children. Her mother is a nurse at the health care center where Bembry herself works. The center provides care to any American Indian regardless of tribal affiliation. Bembry’s younger brother is working toward a bachelor’s degree while receiving a scholarship. “The opportunities they provide us are endless,” Bembry said. “I could have been the president if I wanted to.” So far, she isn’t running.

There’s always the next generation.

Staff writer Elizabeth Kelleher contributed to this article.