UC San Diego has returned 713 Native American ancestors to tribal nations since 2021, representing 73 percent of the human remains the university held.
Chancellor Pradeep K. Khosla shared those figures during testimony before California's Select Committee on Native American Affairs and Joint Legislative Audit Committee on Tuesday, Aug. 4. The hearing focused on how the University of California system is complying with the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act (NAGPRA) and its state counterpart, CalNAGPRA.
Beyond human remains, the La Jolla campus has repatriated roughly 53 percent of cultural items in its collections: 525 associated funerary objects, 12,675 unassociated funerary objects, 347 objects of cultural patrimony and four sacred objects.
"I remain committed to supporting and strengthening our repatriation efforts so that we can honor the ancestors and cultural items by returning them to the rightful Native American Nations," Khosla told lawmakers Aug. 4.
New staff, 40 lab inspections
The university is expanding its compliance operation. UC San Diego is adding personnel to support NAGPRA Repatriation Coordinator Eva Trujillo, a member of the Mesa Grande Band of Mission Indians who grew up in San Diego County. The campus is also conducting 40 in-person reviews of faculty labs and storage spaces to identify any previously undiscovered cultural items.
Trujillo, a 27-year UC San Diego veteran who earned her anthropology degree from the university, developed the campus's NAGPRA Compliance Training in partnership with the Office of Organizational Transformation and local tribal communities. The online training module is the first of its kind in the UC system.
In a UC San Diego Today profile published Aug. 26, Trujillo said of her repatriation work: "If we're busy, that means ancestors are going back home."
Legislative backdrop
The Sacramento hearing comes after stronger state oversight. As Native News Online reported, Gov. Gavin Newsom signed AB 226 and AB 389 on Oct. 10, 2023. AB 226 requires additional state audits of UC campuses and annual reporting to the Assembly Higher Education Committee starting June 2024. AB 389 extends similar requirements to California State University campuses. Federal and state law originally required UC to return human remains and items by 1995.
Broader tribal partnerships
UC San Diego has also expanded its Indigenous programming beyond repatriation. The Indigenous Futures Institute (IFI), established in 2020 in the Wertheim School of Public Health and Human Longevity Science, is led by Executive Director Chag Lowry (Yurok/Maidu/Pit River). In February 2026, the IFI partnered with the Rincon Band of Luiseño Indians and the Eyaay Ahuun Foundation to host the Indigi-Con Creators Symposium on Native land. It was the first such event in California hosted by a local tribe.
In December 2025, the IFI hosted "All Together Now: California Native Women's Leadership" on campus, featuring Chairwoman Angela Elliott-Santos of the Manzanita Band of the Kumeyaay Nation and California Rural Indian Health Board Executive Director Virginia Hedrick.
UC San Diego sits on the ancestral homeland of the Kumeyaay people. No specific deadline for the remaining repatriation work has been announced.
