Not-just-tribal ethics

When I worked as the technical specialist on the new Tribal Leaders Institute Project, I read a lot of information lately about tribal ethics. To give you a sneak preview, Erich has written a lot about the four Dakota values of honesty, generosity, courage and perseverance. He and I were discussing an incident completely unrelated to any tribe, except possibly the Northern Cheyenne — I became president of the United States Judo Association this week.

In explaining how it came about, I invoked the four Dakota values as well as other aspects of the in-progress Tribal Ethics course. Erich wanted to know if not all of the people in the organization were completely above-board how did I end up being president anyway.

Honesty — first of all, there are a good number of honest people in the USJA. I like to believe that a lot of them voted for me. When our corporate counsel was asked about who becomes president in the case of a resignation, he rendered an honest opinion, backed by references to precedent and by-laws.

Law and order — although this is not one of the four virtues, it is a topic discussed at length in the ethics courses, on the Tribal Leaders Council and on the Spirit Lake Forum. The USJA has a set of written by-laws. One of the points Erich makes over and over in the five courses in the Tribal Leaders Institute is the necessity of having written policies