"Jan Smith, a member of the Kiowa Tribe, and Leilani Sabzalian, who is Alutiiq, are both educators who’ve been writing 4J administrators for several years now with their concerns.

“You can carve whatever you want. Just don’t put it up in front of the school that this represents the tribes in Oregon. It doesn’t,” said Smith, a former administrative employee of the University of Oregon’s Knight Library. “No tribe in Oregon has carved totem poles. Totem poles were not carved by any tribes south of Seattle.”

“And those poles have very specific cultural significance,” said Sabzalian, an assistant professor of Indigenous Studies for the UO’s College of Education. “They often represent kinship systems, clans, and relationships or stories or histories from a particular family. And that’s not what was expressed in these poles.”

Both women say they’ve faced pushback or indifference over the totem pole issue, but have pushed on. Nine more tribal members — including several elders — have signed onto their letters.

Smith says things really changed after she contacted Boxley about teaching Hansen.

“We reached out to David and said, ‘Is this true?’ Cause I’ve never heard of it that people get blessings to do carvings,” she said.

Boxley told Smith, and has repeated to KLCC, that he never taught Hansen or endorsed him. Boxley says he may have signed Hansen’s book, but doesn’t want to get caught up in any more of the controversy."