Ada Deer

Ada Elizabeth Deer (August 7, 1935 – August 15, 2023) was an American scholar and civil servant who was a member of the Menominee Indian Tribe of Wisconsin and a Native American advocate.

Deer was born in Keshena, Wisconsin, on August 7, 1935, and grew up living on an Indian reservation.

Deer was an active member of the Menominee tribe, which is located in the northeast part of Wisconsin.

As an activist she opposed the federal termination of tribes from the 1950s.

During the Clinton administration, Deer served as Assistant Secretary of the Interior for Indian Affairs.

Under the Menominee Termination Act of 1954, Congress ended the special relationship between the Menominee tribe of Wisconsin and the federal government, and the Menominee tribe had been governed by a corporate body called Menominee Enterprises, Inc (MEI).

MEI was controlled by a voting trust and Menominee tribal members had no shares in the corporation.

Four of the voting trust members were Menominee; however, five votes were required in order for the trust to take action.

She studied and obtained a bachelor's degree from the University of Wisconsin–Madison in 1957 and a Master of Social Work from the New York School of Social Work (later Columbia University School of Social Work) in 1961.

She subsequently served in Puerto Rico with the Peace Corps for two years.

Deer later went on to become a Menominee social worker.

Following the completion of her graduate work, Deer returned to the Midwest to be closer to the Menominee Nation, settling in Minneapolis.

She found few local services in place for Native Americans living in urban settings.

Due to her background in social services, Deer worked to advocate on their behalf with federal authorities.

In the 1960s and 1970s, there was renewed Congressional involvement in rebuilding tribal infrastructure, both socially and economically.

Deer and Jim White became leaders of an organization, Determination of Rights and Unity for Menominee Stockholders (DRUMS), formed in 1970 in opposition to a proposed land development of Legend Lake, a non-Indian owned artificial lake and housing property plan on Menominee land.

The selling of land as an economic stimulus to non-Indians was a direct result of poor economic conditions that the Menominee had been living in since termination.

DRUMS members gained two seats on the MEI Board, and by the end of the following year had obtained a majority of MEI Board seats.

Deer was involved in electoral politics beginning in the 1970s.

After successfully stopping the land development in 1972, DRUMS later began the fight to reverse termination and regain status as a federally recognized and sovereign Indian tribe.

Originally in opposition to MEI, members of DRUMS eventually gained positions in MEI offices where they began lobbying the United States Congress for Menominee restoration.

As part of these efforts, Deer directly engaged with Senators and Representatives in Congress and crafted legal briefs advocating for Menominee sovereignty.

Her efforts, along with many other Menominees, played a part in bringing the Termination Era to a close.

On December 22, 1973, President Richard Nixon signed the Menominee Restoration Act.

This legislation restored official federal recognition to the Menominee tribe.

Because of her active participation in changing the legislation, Ada Deer was the first woman to chair the Menominee tribe in Wisconsin.

From 1974 to 1976, Deer served as chair of the Menominee Restoration Committee.

Before and after her term in the Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA), Deer served on the National Support Committee (NSC) of the Native American Rights Fund (NARF).

She has served as chair of the NSC and chair of the NARF board of directors.

In both 1978 and 1982, Deer ran for Secretary of State of Wisconsin, losing both elections.

In 1984, Deer served as vice chair of Walter Mondale's 1984 presidential campaign.

In 1992, she ran for a seat in the U.S. House of Representatives, mounting a campaign in Wisconsin's 2nd congressional district.

She won the Democratic primary without "soft money" funding from political action committees.

Following her primary win, a local newspaper ran a photo of Deer proudly holding a sign reading "Me Nominee" in a reference to her tribal membership.

Ada Deer became the first Native American woman in Wisconsin that ran for U.S. Congress.

In 1993, Deer was appointed Assistant Secretary for Indian Affairs at the Department of the Interior by President Bill Clinton, serving as head of the Bureau of Indian Affairs from 1993 to 1997.

She was the first woman to hold this position.

Secretary of the Interior Bruce Babbitt praised her for her "lifelong commitment to American Indian rights, to improving the lives of American Indians, and to the strengthening of tribal governments".

During this period, she was a delegate to the United Nations Human Rights Committee.

From January to May 1997, she served as Chair of the National Indian Gaming Commission.