Kevin Gover, J.D. (Pawnee/Commanche)

Affiliate Director, American Indian Policy Institute

Professor of Law & Affiliate Professor of the American Indian Studies Program

Faculty Affiliate Indian Legal Program Sandra Day O’Connor College of Law

Kevin Gover is a member of the Pawnee Tribe of Oklahoma. After graduating from Princeton, where he majored in Public and International Affairs, Professor Gover worked as a specialist for the American Indian Policy Review Commission, a research group chartered by Congress to study a wide range of issues important to Native Americans. Private practice followed, first with a large firm in Washington, DC and then, forming a firm in New Mexico with two other highly regarded Indian Lawyers. The firm grew into one of the largest Indian owned law firms in the country.

Gover served as Assistant Secretary of the Interior for Indian Affairs under Interior Secretary and former Arizona Governor, Bruce Babbitt, from 1996-2001. As Assistant Secretary he concentrated on upgrading Indian law enforcement, rebuilding decrepit Indian schools, reforming trust services and overhauling the Bureau of Indian Affair's management system. His reform efforts coupled with an eloquent and moving apology to the nation's Indian Communities for the wrongs done to them by the Bureau of Indian Affairs in the past, on the occasion of the 175th anniversary of the Bureau's founding, won him wide approval in Indian country and Congressional praise.

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