Kekek is a former president of the Minnesota American Indian Bar Association, a Bush Foundation Leadership Fellow and alumnus of Hamline University School of Law.
Kekek is Turtle Mountain Ojibwe, member of the Bizhiw (Lynx) Clan and a practitioner of Indigenous law. Kekek has first-hand experience in training students in how to work productively with Indigenous principles and procedures. He has built institutions grounded in Anishinaabe law and helped students and communities forge better relations between Indigenous and non-Indigenous institutions and peoples.
Kekek joined the Alexander Blewett III School of Law faculty in the summer of 2020 as an assistant professor. Kekek has also worked as an assistant professor with the American Indian Studies Department at the University of Minnesota – Duluth as well as an adjunct faculty member at several institutions. He has taught courses in federal Indian law, tribal law, tribal natural resources law, Tribal government, Tribal sovereignty, treaty rights, Indian Child Welfare, and American Indian diplomacy.
In addition to his teaching experience, Kekek served as the Attorney General for the Lac Courte Oreilles Band of Lake Superior Chippewa Indians, as a policy analyst in the Division of Intergovernmental Affairs for the Great Lakes Indian Fish and Wildlife Commission, and as policy analyst for the Bad River Band of Lake Superior Tribe of Chippewa Indians.
Kekek’s research interests include the Anishinaabe legal order as well as Treaty reserved rights, Federal Indian law, Anishinaabe diplomacy and tribal law based upon traditional knowledge and traditional stories.