NAFPS Forum

In 2020, she launched Rice Consulting LLC, the only DEI consulting firm owned by a Native American woman which focuses on Native American diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives.

Corinne Rice (Lakota) and the Executive Director for the BUFFALO Project, which stands for Brothers United For Feeling And Leading Openness

I have been asked before, both in person and in interview about how I navigate surrogacy and my traditional culture as an Oglala Lakota woman. I am Khanawake Mohawk and Oglala Lakota but I will be speaking today on sacred femininity and surrogacy as a straight Cis-gender Lakota woman. We also believe in the two spirit community, which I have carried a baby for two gay men as well, but today I will be speaking on the subject of surrogacy and infertility.

I am proud to be all of my pieces, and most recently in life I honor the part of me who is Lakota. I spent the past few years learning, observing, and immersing myself in my culture. I had a desire, and HAVE a desire to grow that part of who I am. I owe it to my ancestors who desperately fought for our cultural survival, to own that part of me. To live as traditionally as I am able.

Oestreich wore a medicine bag around her neck and rawhide earrings with Dakota floral painted onto them. “The decision to incorporate pieces of my culture in my daily wear is an act of resistance because I'm saying 'I don't care,’” she said. “You're going to know who I am. You're going to know where I come from. And I'm going to be brave and wear it and represent who I am.”

Andrew Perera a Lakota and head of Security, applies traditional Lakota “Akicita” face paint made from the ashes of a Shoshone Ghost Dance fire.

She’s teamed up with her brother Andrew Perera, who holds a masters of jurisprudence in Indian Law.

“We are representing students, community members, faculty, staff and the 11 tribes in this area,” said Perera, who is Lakota

Recently a “Pretendian” named Corrine Grey Cloud has admitted to having no ancestry to our Nations of Turtle Island as a result from concerned Women in our Communities who pushed to hold her accountable. Grey Cloud as it is reported comes from a Law Enforcement Family managed to fool “Indian Country” for 8 years. She benefited financially from her fabricated persona where she is a social media influencer recognized by Forbes magazine that allowed her to establish a huge Indigneous Following. When our own Women attempted to hold her accountable they were accused of being toxic which has caused division in our community

Corinne is from the San Francisco bay area in California and is of Mohawk and Lakota descent and daughter to Heidi and Steve Switzer and John Perera. Greg is from the Crow Creek Sioux Tribe and son to Kimberly Dempsey and the late Duane Grey Cloud.

CORINNE RICE, Lakota/Mohawk — was born in 1986 in Sunnyvale California, to an Oglala Lakota and Kahnawa:ke Mohawk mother and Pacific Islander and Dutch father.

A big trial in a small North Dakota courtroom is testing the First Amendment in the era of Trump
By Laura Paddison, CNN — 5 minute read — Updated 11:49 AM EDT, Tue March 18, 2025

A high stakes $300 million lawsuit brought by a giant pipeline company against the environmental group Greenpeace is drawing to a conclusion in a small courthouse in North Dakota.

After three weeks of hearings, the case is now in the hands of the jury. What’s decided could bankrupt Greenpeace’s US operations and deal a devastating blow to free speech and protest, experts say.

The lawsuit, brought by Dallas-based Energy Transfer Partners, revolves around protests against the construction of the Dakota Access Pipeline near the Standing Rock Sioux Reservation nearly a decade ago.

Energy Transfer accuses Greenpeace of masterminding the protests, spreading misinformation and causing the company financial loss through damaged property and lost revenues. It’s seeking at least $300 million and potentially more than double that in punitive damages.

Greenpeace says it played only a minor role in what were Indigenous-led protests and that the lawsuit is an attempt to suppress free speech and dissent. “This is a test on our First Amendment rights during a very, very dangerous time in this country’s history,” said Deepa Padmanabha, senior legal advisor for Greenpeace USA.

President Donald Trump’s return to the White House has ushered in a wide rollback of climate and environmental policies, an emboldening of fossil fuel companies and a crackdown on free speech.

Some legal experts say the case has the hallmarks of a so-called SLAPP action, a strategic lawsuit against public participation with the intent to shut down critics or trap them in expensive litigation. Dozens of US states have anti-SLAPP laws, but North Dakota does not.

The consequences of a Greenpeace loss are huge, said James Wheaton, the founder and senior counsel for the First Amendment Project, a public interest law firm. The effect could be “to establish that anybody who assists in putting on a protest is going to be held responsible for what everybody else does at that protest,” he told CNN.

The protests against construction of the Dakota Access Pipeline started in 2016. The Standing Rock Sioux fiercely opposed the pipeline, saying it would endanger the Missouri River, their water source, and damage sacred tribal grounds. Many thousands of people, including representatives of more than 100 tribes and dozens of non-profits, joined in the months-long protest.

Their efforts to halt construction were ultimately unsuccessful, however, and the pipeline started operating in June 2017. It now carries around 750,000 barrels of crude oil a day from North Dakota to Illinois.

Energy Transfer’s legal battle against Greenpeace has been going on for nearly eight years, driven by its CEO, the billionaire Kelcy Warren, a key Trump donor who once said at an oil industry event that pipeline protestors needed to be “removed from the gene pool.”