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What is blood quantum? Why did the US want American Indian nations to create a blood quantum requirement for citizenship/enrollment? What were the consequences and what are the current efforts for repair? Join Dr. Jill Doerfler for “Reform and Repair: Removing Blood Quantum from Tribal Citizenship Requirements” to find out.
 
The United States employed blood quantum policies to acquire land and resources, dispossessing and legally eliminating many American Indians. During the mid-twentieth century, the US government pressured American Indian nations to include blood quantum in their citizenship requirements. In this presentation, Doerfler will examine the distinct history of the White Earth Nation, which is a member band of the Minnesota Chippewa Tribe. She will detail their decades-long opposition to blood quantum and eventual adoption of a blood quantum requirement for citizenship in the 1960s, which resulted in numerous harmful impacts. Doerfler will share how modern constitutional reform initiatives include efforts to repair these harms by restoring kinship-based citizenship.

About the Speaker

Dr. Jill Doerfler (Anishinaabe) grew up on the White Earth Reservation in Northern Minnesota and is the daughter of an enrollee. She is a professor and department head of American Indian Studies at the University of Minnesota Duluth. She has lectured and published widely on the topics of citizenship, blood quantum, and constitutional reform. Her monograph, Those Who Belong: Identity, Family, Blood, and Citizenship Among the White Earth Anishinaabeg, examines staunch Anishinaabe resistance to racialization and the complex issues surrounding tribal citizenship and identity. She co-authored The White Earth Nation: Ratification of a Native Democratic Constitution with Gerald Vizenor and co-edited Centering Anishinaabeg Studies: Understanding the World Through Stories with Niigaanwewidam James Sinclair and Heidi Kiiwetinepinesiik Stark. From 2016 to 2020 she co-coordinated a grassroots community group, Zaagibagaang, which focused on providing accessible information and empowering people to participate in governance. In 2023, Dr. Doerfler became the editor for the American Indian Studies Series and Makwa Enewed imprint with Michigan State University Press. Recently she co-edited “Indigenous Periodicals,” a special guest issue of American Periodicals (2023) and Indigenous Media Ecologies (2026) with Cristina Stanciu and Oliver Scheiding.