Sarah Deer


Sarah Deer is a Native American lawyer from the Muscogee Nation of Oklahoma. She is a "University Distinguished Professor" of Indigenous Studies, Women, Gender, and Sexuality Studies, and Public Affairs and Administration at the University of Kansas, where she also received her B.A. and J.D. Deer began her efforts of 25+ years supporting Native sexual assault victims while volunteering as a rape crisis advocate during her undergraduate degree, unfolded in her most recent book, The Beginning and End of Rape: Confronting Sexual Violence in Native America. She was a 2014 MacArthur fellow and has been inducted into the National Women's Hall of Fame in 2019.
Deer advocates on behalf of survivors of sexual assault and domestic violence, primarily within Native American communities. She has been credited for her "instrumental role" in the 2013 reauthorization of the Violence Against Women Act, which "recognizes that the inherent right of tribal nations includes criminal jurisdiction over non-Indian defendants accused of domestic violence", a long fought for provision. Deer coauthored, with Bonnie Claremont, Amnesty International's 2007 report Maze of Injustice, documenting sexual assault against Native American women, which supported her testimony that is credited in the passage of the Tribal Law and Order Act in 2010. She has served on the Prairie Island Indian Community Court of Appeals since 2013 and been Chief Justice since 2016. Since 2015, she has also served as an appellate judge for the White Earth Nation.
Deer advocates for feminist, queer, and trans politics in Indigenous communities. She is most acknowledged for her activism to stop violence against Native American women. She has received many national awards, including the Allied Professional Award and Crime Victim Service Award from the U.S. Department of Justice in 2011, the Spirit of Excellence Award from the American Bar Association in 2016, and is in both the Mvskoke Nation Hall of Fame and National Women’s Hall of Fame for her accomplishments. In 2020, she was chosen as both a Andrew Carnegie Fellow and the Honorary Doctorate Recipient of Humane Letters from Brooklyn College.
Most recently, Deer has been working on Indigenous feminist legal theory, working to restructure the current law systems built under colonial, patriarchal, racist boundaries.

Books