In summary
Cal State campuses have mixed records in returning Native remains and artifacts to tribes. Campus officials say they are working diligently to follow legal mandates but the process can be arduous, especially for non-federally recognized tribes.
All but one Cal State campus have Native American remains and cultural items that federal and state laws require them to return to tribes. In many cases, the process has been slow.
Though the size of their collections varies, campuses like Cal Poly Humboldt and San Francisco State have made progress in returning human remains and cultural items, with Sacramento State having returned most of its Native collections. But others, like Cal Poly Pomona, have yet to see much progress and Cal State Bakersfield has not made any returns.
The Cal State system holds the remains of more than 2,000 Native Americans and more than 1.57 million artifacts, according to the most recent list of the system’s collections. Another 500,000 collections of items are still in storage awaiting proper tribal review to be cataloged.
Campus officials say they are working diligently to follow legal mandates to return items to tribes, but the road can be long and arduous.
Last February, members of the Konkow Valley Band of Maidu tribe reburied three ancestors whose remains had been held at Sacramento State since 1963. The Lake Concow Campground donated 10.7 acres of land to the tribe within their traditional territory in Northern California, where they were able to perform the reburials.
“During the process it’s a very, very heavy feeling,” said Matthew Williford Sr., the tribal chairperson and cultural resource director. “But when you receive the remains back, you feel lighter. It doesn’t feel like so much weight.”
If collections stay in storage, for Williford, it’s as if “nobody knows that we were ever around.”
“It’s important for us to get that back, because we believe that those items still have spirit,” he said. “They need to come back to the people.”
Federal and state Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation laws require agencies and institutions with Native American remains and cultural items, such as the ancestors’ remains from Williford’s tribe, be returned to tribes. While there was not a deadline for when collections had to be returned, federal law required campuses to complete an inventory of their collections by 1995.
As of February 2025, Sacramento State had repatriated 89% of the human remains and 68% of the cultural items on their campus. That means control of the collections has been legally transferred to a culturally affiliated tribe, but collections may remain physically held by the campus if requested by the tribe. The figure also does not include what the campus holds for other state or federal agencies.
“Some tribes want us to hold on to collections, in which case we might do a held trust agreement, where we just are saying, ‘We’re holding this for you until you’re ready to take it for repatriation,’” said Sarah Eckhardt, Sacramento State’s repatriation coordinator.
Eckhardt has been the repatriation coordinator for more than six years, overseeing the university’s compliance with repatriation laws and policies. Eckhardt shared that the campus has a good relationship with local tribes, to whom the majority of their collections belong, allowing them to repatriate the collections effectively.
The amount of cultural items at Sacramento State decreased significantly from about 30,000 in 2024 to about 6,000 in 2025.
Why it’s hard to return Native artifacts
To move forward with repatriation, universities have to contact potential culturally affiliated tribes, based on geographic location or historical evidence, for consultation. Then, tribes can submit a request for repatriation.
While the process can be slow, multiple tribal leaders said that the campuses are supportive and are up against federal and state rules that complicate returns for non-federally recognized tribes. There are also times of confusion over who exactly has authority to make those returns.
Sacramento State reported an increase in their collection of human remains from 171 in 2024 to 223 in 2025, which Eckhardt said was due to some confusion over who manages them.
“There were several collections that we thought were the responsibility of another agency, that they denied responsibility for and so we accepted responsibility for that,” said Eckhardt.
Near the end of 2024, 32 boxes containing three human remains and cultural items previously held at Sacramento State were returned to Williford’s state-recognized tribe. But since they are not federally-recognized, federal law meant they’d have to partner with a federal tribe to claim the collections on their behalf, and also have local tribes sign off on the handover, said Williford. That process took about six months after a notice was published to the federal registrar, which informs other tribes in case any want to rebut the claim. To him, that was a quick timeframe.
“At least they’re trying… I think they need to up their game on helping nonfederal tribes with federal repatriation,” said Williford.
San Jose State has run into a similar situation. The university has returned all the remains belonging to federally recognized tribes, but still possesses remains affiliated with non-federally recognized tribes, posing the biggest challenge, according to Alisha Marie Ragland, the campus’ repatriation coordinator. As of December 2025, San Jose State reported having 514 human remains and more than 5,000 collections of stored items waiting to be reviewed.
“SJSU will continue to work with tribes to find appropriate and respectful means of sending the Ancestors home,” said Ragland via email.
So, why do some campuses struggle to make returns under their care?
“Repatriation can take years. Just for what we consider one artifact potentially could take up to a couple years,” said David Silva, the repatriation coordinator at Cal State Bakersfield.
Cal State Bakersfield is still in the process of consulting with tribes to determine what the boxes under their care contain, he said.
“There’s no direct timeline for our tribal partners to have to conduct consultation,” said Silva. “The only timeline is really when we start to submit notices or when we complete that inventory verification.”
Curtis Alcantar is a member of the Tejon Indian tribe and a tribal representative for the NAGPRA committee at the Bakersfield campus, working with Silva. Alcantar said he has had a good experience working with the university and other Cal State campuses and that he believes the system is moving in a positive direction.
Before, Bakersfield housed items in five different rooms spread throughout campus, creating a hassle for tribal members. They recently moved to a new building on campus, allowing tribes easier access to review collections.
When he first started helping with tribal consultations, Alcantar was troubled by how many Native American remains and cultural items were still in possession of museums and universities. Universities acquired Native remains and items through excavations and research often from anthropology and archeology disciplines. Some collections were acquired through donations.
At the time, it was difficult for him to understand how much Native American collections museums and universities still held and were refusing to give back, said Alcantar. But now, he says that people are more open minded and willing to repatriate.
The process does take a lot of research and time, he added. For him, the most helpful tool Cal State has provided is the campus collections map, making it easier to find which campuses have collections from Kern County, his home base. According to the map, eight different Cal State campuses have collections from Kern County and Cal State Bakersfield has collections from 18 California counties.
“The fulfilling part for me is seeing the objects go back home, watching the ancestors just finally get their journey back home,” said Alcantar.
Cal Poly Humboldt has repatriated about 39% of the 23,889 cultural items initially in its possession, according to figures provided by Megan Watson, the campus’ NAGPRA coordinator. San Francisco State has repatriated roughly 36% of its original 44,000 collections of stored items, according to Robert King, the campus’ director of communications. The campus has about 250 remains, a number that hasn’t budged much in recent years. Since November, it has returned two remains with about 260 collections of items, the official said.
Cal State updates list of Native collections
Cal State’s updated list was released in December after, for the first time, all Cal State campuses completed an inventory review.
Sonoma State has more than 1.52 million cultural items, by far the highest count in the system. Meanwhile, Cal State Fullerton holds the most remains with 534 individuals counted, and San Diego State has the highest collections of stored items awaiting tribal review, totaling more than 426,000.
One reason for Sonoma State’s high count is that it has a large facility to house those collections under proper care, said Samantha Cypret, a member of the Mountain Maidu tribe and executive director of the office of tribal relations for the Cal State Chancellor’s Office, which oversees NAGPRA compliance. Campuses with large anthropology or archeology departments also tend to have larger collections, she added.
Multiple members of Sonoma State’s NAGPRA team were contacted for comment. Some declined an interview while others did not respond.
Cal State revamps how it returns remains — with some delays
In November 2025, Cal State launched a systemwide NAGPRA policy providing campuses with a consistent approach for repatriations. The move came in response to Assembly Bill 389 – a 2023 amendment to the 2001 state NAGPRA Act – and a critical Cal State audit. The assembly bill required the Chancellor’s Office to adopt a systemwide policy and committee, and that committees form at each campus.
Cypret said that the policy took time to enact after the audit was issued and the Assembly Bill passed because they wanted to make sure they were letting tribal voices take the lead, learning about what tribes wanted to see included in the policy.
“We also really wanted to make sure that we were centering tribal voices in the development, in the implementation of this policy, so we held over 30 tribal outreach sessions in about the year and a half that this policy took to create,” said Cypret.
The new system policy outlines responsibilities of each campus, such as employing a full-time repatriation coordinator, conducting ongoing surveys of holdings and forbidding the use of collections for teaching and research. Cal State allocated $3.7 million for campuses with Native American collections for the fiscal year 2025-2026 to support the costs of staffing repatriation coordinators, reburial costs, reimbursing tribes for travel costs, and other expenses related to repatriation.
The University of California system and community colleges also have Native American collections on their campuses. An audit of the University of California published in April 2025 determined that the system lacked urgency and accountability.
Williford said that his tribe has made formal requests to receive two woven baskets from UC Berkeley that are part of his tribe’s dogwood collection. For him, helping return collections for his tribe has helped him feel connected to his dad who passed away in 2015. He said his dad was part of a “lost generation” that knew who they were but didn’t have a lot of cultural information. But today, the tribe’s elders find meaning when returns are made.
“To see an elder’s eyes light up like a child’s, it’s something special,” said Williford.
Cal State will review its systemwide policy again in November 2026 after tribal consultations.
Brittany Oceguera is a contributor with the College Journalism Network, a collaboration between CalMatters and student journalists from across California. CalMatters higher education coverage is supported by a grant from the College Futures Foundation.
