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Spirit Lake Consulting, Inc. research on Reservation Ethics
Dr. Erich Longie, Co-author of this course, was born and raised on the Spirit Lake Reservation, he also served in leadership positions for the past twenty-years. But don't take his word on whether or not there are ethical issues on reservations.

In preparation of this course Spirit Lake Consulting, Inc. (SLC) conducted a community survey of a broad spectrum of tribal leaders across four reservations in two states. This was supplemented by a nationwide email survey. The depth of responses across both sources amazed us.
Respondents were asked,
“List five most common major/minor ethical infractions and the frequency (all the time, once in a while, very seldom) you believe they occur on Indian Reservations.”
The below are not a selected sample of the comments. All of the comments we received, from the casino General Manager to a former tribal council representative to tribal administrators echoed the same sentiments.

“Don’t get me started. I could not limit myself to five, here are the eight biggest issues. “
“Selecting relatives for various resources such as housing, contracts, scholarships, governing boards, land, charity, and education. All the time.”
“Tribal employees should have a job standard to abide by such as:
-not beating up your boss or co-workers.
- reprimanded for getting a DUI (especially if you are the IHS wellness director).
“Also, if you are fired for any of the above items, the employee should not be able to be hired in another tribal position for limited amount of time. I personally know of an employee who beat up her boss at the tribal college ... She was hired within the week at the tribal administration office.”
“Abuse of work privileges - doing personal tasks while getting paid to (work) “
“Abuse of work hours - going to work late or leaving earlier. All the time.”

Many listed more than five. The overwhelming majority of respondents said that these infractions occurred “all the time”.