Charles Wilkinson

Professor Emeritus
History and Society in the American West; Indian Law; Public Land Law; Water Law

401 UCB
2450 Kittredge Loop Drive
Wolf Law Building
Boulder, CO  80309-0401
Office: 405
Phone: (303) 492-8262
E-mail: Charles.Wilkinson@colorado.edu

Curriculum Vitae:  View (PDF format)

Educational Background:
J.D.   Stanford Law School   1966  
B.A.   Denison University   1963  
Bio:
Charles Wilkinson is the Moses Lasky Professor of Law Emeritus at the University of Colorado. He has also been named as Distinguished Professor, one of just twenty-five on the University of Colorado-Boulder campus. After graduating from Stanford Law School and practicing with Phoenix and San Francisco firms, Wilkinson joined the Native American Rights Fund in 1971 as a staff attorney. Since 1975, he has taught at the Oregon and Colorado law schools, receiving many teaching and research awards.

His fourteen books include the standard law casebooks on Indian Law and Federal Public Land Law. He has also authored general audience books such as Crossing the Next Meridian: Land, Water, and the Future of the West (1992); The Eagle Bird: Mapping a New West (1992); Fire on the Plateau: Conquest and Endurance in the American Southwest (1999); Messages from Frank?s Landing: a Story of Salmon, Treaties, and the Indian way (2000); Blood Struggle: The Rise of Modern Indian Nations (2005); and The People Are Dancing Again: The History of the Siletz Tribe of Western Oregon (2010).

Over the years, Wilkinson has taken on many special assignments for the US Departments of Interior, Agriculture, and Justice. He served as special counsel to the Interior Department for the drafting of the Presidential Proclamation, signed by President Clinton in September 1996, establishing the Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument in Utah. He acted as the facilitator in negotiations between the National Park Service and the Timbisha Shoshone Tribe concerning a tribal land base in Death Valley National Park; in 2000, Congress enacted legislation ratifying the resulting agreement. In 2004, he served as the mediator in successful negotiations, involving salmon runs in the Cedar River, between the City of Seattle and the Muckleshoot Indian Tribe. He served as Special Advisor to the Bears Ears Inter-Tribal Coalition in regard to the creation of the Bears Ears National Monument, proclaimed by President Obama in 2016.

Wilkinson's awards include the National Wildlife Federation's National Conservation Award; the Oregon High Desert Museum's Earle A. Chiles Award for career dedication to the High Desert; the Warm Springs Museum's Twanat Award for tireless work for Indian people; the Grand Canyon Trust's John Wesley Powell Award for extraordinary vision, passion, and commitment to the Colorado Plateau; and the Federal Bar Association's Lawrence R. Baca Award for Lifetime Achievement in Indian Law.

Published Books

Wilkinson (with Coggins, Leshy, Fischman, & Krakoff), Federal Public Land and Resources Law, (Foundation Press, 8th ed. 2022).
Wilkinson (with Getches, Williams, Jr., Fletcher, & Carpenter), Cases and Materials on Federal Indian Law, (West Publishing Co., 7th ed. 2017).
Wilkinson (with Cohen, et. al.), Cohen's Handbook of Federal Indian Law, (LexisNexis, 2012 edition). (Michie Bobbs-Merrill, 1982 edition, Managing Editor and member of Board of Authors and Editors)..
The People Are Dancing Again: The History of the Siletz Tribe of Western Oregon, (University of Washington Press, 2010).
Blood Struggle: The Rise of Modern Indian Nations, (W.W. Norton & Co., 2005).
Messages From Frank's Landing: A Story of Salmon, Treaties, and the Indian Way, (University of Washington Press, 2000).
Fire on the Plateau: Conflict and Endurance in the American Southwest, (Island Press,1999).
Wilkinson (with Riebsame, Robb, and Limerick), Atlas of the New West: Portrait of a Changing Region, (W.W. Norton & Co.,1997).
The Eagle Bird: Mapping A New West, (Pantheon Books, 1992)..
Crossing the Next Meridian: Land, Water, and the Future of the West, (Island Press, 1992).
The American West: A Narrative Bibliography and A Study In Regionalism, (University Press of Colorado, 1989).
American Indians, Time, and the Law: Native Societies in A Modern Constitutional Democracy, (Yale University Press, 1987).
Wilkinson (with Anderson), Land and Resource Planning in the National Forests, (Island Press, 1987).

Articles

Wilkinson (with Daniel Cordalis), Heeding the Clarion Call for Sustainable, Spiritual Western Landscapes: Will the People Be Granted a New Forest Service?, 33 Pub. Land & Resources L. Rev. 1 (2012).
The Public Lands and the National Heritage, 14 Hastings W.-Nw. J. Envtl. L. & Pol'y 499 (2008).
Indian Nations and the Federal Government: What Will Justice Require in the Future? Claims Against the Sovereign 20th Judicial Conference of the United States Court of Federal Claims, 17 Fed. Cir. B. J. 235 (2008).
The First Half Century of Western Water Reform: Have We Kept Faith with the Rivers of the West?, 36 Envtl. L. 1115 (2006).
Listening to All the Voices, Old and New: The Evolution of Land Ownership in the Modern West, 83 Denv. U. L. Rev. 945 (2006).
"Peoples Distinct from Others": The Making of Modern Indian Law, Utah L. Rev. 379. (2006).
A Case Study in the Intersection of Law and Science: The 1999 Report of the Committee of Scientists, 42 Arizona Law Rev. 307 (2000).
Land Use, Science, and Spirituality: The Search for a True and Lasting Relationship with the Land, 21 Public Land and Resources Law Rev. 1 (2000).
Indian Tribal Rights and The National Forests: The Cases of the Aboriginal Lands of the Nez Perce Tribes, 34 Idaho Law Rev. 435 (1998).
The National Forest Management Act: The Twenty Years Behind, the Twenty Years Ahead, 68 U. Colorado Law Rev. 559 (1997).
The Role of Bilateralism in Fulfilling the Federal-Tribal Relationship: The Tribal Rights-Endangered Species Secretarial Order, 72 Washington Law Rev. 1063 (1997).
Designating Paradise, Plateau Journal, p. 29 (1997).
Filling in the Blank Spots on Powell's and Stegner's Maps: The Role of Modern Indian Tribes in Western Watersheds, 23 J. Land Res. & Envtl. L. 41 (2003).

Book Chapters

Indian Water Rights in Conflict with State Water Rights: The Case of the Pyramid Lake PaiuteTribe in Nevada, US, in Out of the Mainstream: Water Rights, Politics and Identity (Rutgerd Boelens, David Getches & Armando Guevara Gil eds., 2010).
Foreword, in The Mojave Desert: Ecosystem Processes and Sustainability (Robert H. Webb ed., 2009).
Foreword, in A Lawyer in Indian Country: A Memoir (by Alvin J. Ziontz, Univ. of Washington Press, 2009).
The New West Never Happened, in Voices of the American West 35 (Corinne Platt & Meredith Ogilby eds, 2009).
American Indians' Spirituality and Land Use, in American Indian Places: A Historical Guidebook (Houghton Mifflin Co., 2008).
Return of the Canoe Journey, in To Harvest, to Hunt: Stories of Resource Use in the American West (Judy L. Li, ed., 2007).
The Olympic Peninsula's Elwha River: Prisoner of History, Harbinger of Hope, in Away Out Over Everything: The Olympic Peninsula and the Elwha River (Stanford University Press, 2004).
Aldo Leopold on Public Land, in The Essential Leopold: Quotations and Commentaries (1999).
Introduction, in Mono Lake: Explorations and Reflections (Jim Stimson ed.,1998).
Wallace Stegner and the Shaping of the Modern West, in Wallace Stegner and the Continental Vision (1997).

Courses:

Spring 2021 American Indian Law II LAWS 7735-801
Spring 2020 American Indian Law II LAWS 7735-801
Spring 2019 American Indian Law II LAWS 7735-801
Spring 2018 American Indian Law II LAWS 7735-001
Spring 2017 American Indian Law II LAWS 7735-001
Spring 2016 Framing and Legal Narrative LAWS 5211-801
Spring 2016 Public Land Law LAWS 6002-001
Spring 2016 Seminar: Advanced Natural Resources Law LAWS 8112-001
Fall 2015 Foundations of Natural Resources Law LAWS 6112-001
Fall 2014 Foundations of Natural Resources Law LAWS 6112-001
Fall 2014 American Indian Law I LAWS 7725-001
Spring 2014 Public Land Law LAWS 6002-001
Spring 2014 American Indian Law II LAWS 7735-001
Fall 2013 Foundations of Natural Resources Law LAWS 6112-001
Fall 2013 LLM Seminar LAWS 9846-902
Spring 2013 American Indian Law II LAWS 7735-001
Spring 2013 Seminar: Advanced Natural Resources Law LAWS 8112-001
Fall 2012 Foundations of Natural Resources Law LAWS 6112-001