In the late spring and summer of 2000, the author, a State University of New York employee, served as expert witness for the Cayuga Indian Nation in their land claims suit against New York State. He wrote a historical narrative on the dispossession of the Cayu-gas and what had happened to these Indians since 1795, gave a deposition, and testified in federal district court in Syracuse. Despite working off state time and carefully following state laws and SUNY's procedures of financial disclosure, he soon found himselfsub-jected to repercussions caused by his testimony. When the federal district court decision awarded the Cayugas $247.8 million, the fallout from the case intensified. The present memoir has relevance not just to State University of New York employees but to all federal, state, county, and municipal employees. The issue goes beyond one professor's academic freedom to speak out to tell the truth, but to the First Amendment rights of all government-employed historians.
“Going Off the Reservation”: A Memoir
LAURENCE M. HAUPTMAN is SUNY Distinguished Professor of History at the State University of New York at New Paltz, where he has taught for thirty-two years. He is the author/editor of thirteen books in American Indian history. He has served as a historical consultant for the Adirondack Museum, New York State Museum, Rochester Museum and Science Center, as well as for the Cayuga, Mashantucket Pequot, Seneca, and Wisconsin Oneida Indian Nations. He was the expert witness on the Seneca Nation Settlement Act of 1990, testifying before committees of both houses of Congress. Hauptman is also a member of the state-wide Advisory Committee of the New York State Archives. In 2000, Hauptman was an expert witness in the Cayuga land claims case, the subject of the present article.
LAURENCE M. HAUPTMAN; “Going Off the Reservation”: A Memoir. The Public Historian 1 November 2003; 25 (4): 81–94. doi: https://doi.org/10.1525/tph.2003.25.4.81
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