Million named Freedom Scholar

Dian Million (Tanana Athabascan), UW associate professor of American Indian studies, received a 2025 Freedom Scholar Award from the Marguerite Casey Foundation (MCF) for “her scholarship and activism in Indigenous feminisms and Indigenous community well-being.” The Freedom Scholar Award honors leading academics whose visionary work advances social and economic justice. 

Million is one of four 2025 Freedom Scholar honorees, each receiving a one-time $250,000 award. The Foundation supports leaders, scholars, and initiatives that focus on shifting the balance of power in society, building power for communities that continue to be excluded from shaping how society works and from sharing in its rewards and freedoms.

Million has been teaching in the UW Department of American Indian Studies since 2002 and is an affiliate professor in the Comparative History of Ideas department and Canadian Studies in the Jackson School of International Studies. She is the author of "Therapeutic Nations: Healing in an Age of Indigenous Human Rights" (University of Arizona Press, Critical Issues in Indigenous Studies Series, 2013) as well as numerous articles, chapters, and poems.  Dr. Million centers her work on questions arising from the violent effects of capitalism/settler colonialism on Indigenous family and community health in North America.

In a UW Daily story about her award, Million shared that the monetary award will help support “different Native community projects that do not usually have access to funds. I will share some part of this award with some smaller groups that need recognition and material help with their projects. I am interested first in advocating for and funding Indigenous women-led projects for health and sovereignty.”

The Freedom Scholar awards were launched in 2020. Previous UW recipients include Megan Ming Francis (2020), G. Alan and Barbara Delsman Associate Professor of Political Science and associate professor of law, societies, and justice; Angélica Cházaro (2021), Charles I. Stone Professor of Law; and Chandan Reddy (2023), associate professor of gender, women & sexuality studies and of comparative history of ideas.