Sarah Hicks Sarah Hicks (Alutiiq) is an enrolled member of the Native Village of Ouzinkie and the founding director of the Policy Research Center of the National Congress of American Indians (NCAI). The center is a tribally-driven think tank that strives to “provide tribal leaders with the best available knowledge to make strategically proactive policy decisions in a framework of Native wisdom that positively impact the future of Native peoples.” Sarah received a Bachelor’s degree in sociology from Goucher College and both a master’s degree in social work and a Ph.D. in philosophy from the George Warren Brown School of Social Work at Washington University in St. Louis. Sarah joined NCAI in 1997, after working with the Bureau of Indian Affairs. Sarah’s experience in leading NCAI’s welfare reform reauthorization efforts gave her a sense of the need for timely, credible data to inform policymaking at the tribal and national levels. She also saw the tension that can accumulate when tribes react to the policy proposals of others, rather than developing their own proactive policy solutions. Her early experiences at NCAI led to Sarah’s commitment to the policy center’s core values of a tribally-driven research agenda, which builds research capacity and conducts research for the benefit of tribal communities. With guidance from tribal leadership and NCAI, Sarah sets the strategic direction for and oversees the center’s work. She also serves as principle investigator on a number of the center’s projects.

Feminomics: The Unique Role of Native Women in the U.S. Economy

Will 2010 be the year of the woman? We asked prominent thinkers to discuss women’s changing roles in the economy. How has the crisis affected them? Are women the key to reform? What economic impact will they have going forward? We’ll explore all this and more in a special ND20 12-part series. Sarah Hicks argues that despite high odds, native women are at the forefront of rebuilding the American economy.

The economic gap between white people and communities of color has its origins in centuries of racist and classist American policy. The Homestead Act — a policy that is often seen…