More Trouble for Dan Snyder’s Foundation

Foundation's CEO took nearly $1 million to recruit just 22 Natives for law enforcement positions in Indian Country.

By Aura Bogado Mar 28, 2014

When Dan Snyder, who owns the Washington, D.C. NFL team, announced his "Original Americans Foundation" this week, some Natives weren’t too happy. Now, there’s more information that throws Synder’s effort into more suspicion.

Synder’s been working with Gary Edwards (Cherokee), who heads the foundation. Edwards also runs an organization called the National Native American Law Enforcement Association (NNALEA). Sounds legit, right? It turns out it probably isn’t.

According to a 2012 federal investigation by the Office of the Inspector General, Edwards received nearly $1 million in federal funds for his Native cops association. In return, Edwards supposedly recruited 748 people to apply for law enforcement position in Indian Country. More than 100 of those applicants didn’t even meet standard age requirements. 492 of them aren’t even Native. And not one was even qualified for a hire:

Upon delivery, [Bureau of Indian Affairs’ Office of Justice] officials reviewed the first batch of applications, finding them to be generally unacceptable because they were incomplete and/or applicants exceeded age requirements, did not have Indian preference, and/or had criminal records. Specifically, we reviewed 514 applications for age, felony records, citizenship, driver’s license, educational requirements, required documentation, and position applied. We found 244 applications (47 percent) to be unacceptable because applicants were not qualified for the position applied for or applications were incomplete. For example, one applicant was born in 1929, which is clearly too old at 80 years of age. Other examples include the following:

•          3 applicants were not U.S. citizens;

•          104 applicants were either too old or too young;

•          3 applicants did not have a driver’s license;

•          26 applications were missing critical documents required by the contract;

•          47 applicants lacked a 4-year degree for the criminal investigator position;

and

•          119 applicants did not specify the position they were applying for, which is an Office of Personnel Management requirement (see appendix 4 for additional details).

According to BIA’s Human Resources deputy director, NNALEA’s CEO stated that he would focus his recruitment efforts in Indian Country. We found that recruitment in Indian Country was ineffective, with only 22 of 514 applicants (or about 4 percent) having Indian preference.

The Oneida Nation, which leads Change the Mascot, thinks the revelations illustrate Snyder’s flawed approach. Ray Halbritter, Oneida Nation representative, says that while the information is disturbing, he’s not surprised. "[Synder] then hired a former associate of notorious lobbyist Jack Abramoff, who helped bilk Native Americans, and selected a person who financially harmed Native Americans to run a foundation to defend his team’s name," says Halbritter. "These aren’t accidents, but part of a systematic campaign to denigrate Native Americans by a team owner who will stop at nothing to keep the team’s offensive name."

You can read the damning federal investigation in full