The US Supreme Court just challenged tribal sovereignty in its ruling in Oklahoma v Castro-Huerta, which empowers the state much greater power to prosecute for alleged crimes in tribal lands. The legal implications are vast. We will explore the case and the future of tribal sovereignty in light of the Court’s drastic reversal of case precedent.
What does this case mean for the jurisdiction of the tribe on reservations and on child welfare under what’s called the Indian Child Welfare Act, or ICWA? [ dur: 58mins. ]
- Robert J. Miller is Professor of Law at Sandra Day O’Connor College of Law. He is Interim Chief Justice at Pascua Yaqui Tribe Court of Appeals. He is the author of American Indian Sovereignty versus the United States (in Handbook of Critical Indigenous Studies) and the forthcoming A Promise Kept: The Muscogee (Creek) Nation and McGirt v. Oklahoma. He is an enrolled citizen of the Eastern Shawnee Tribe.
- Elizabeth Hidalgo Reese, Yunpoví, is Assistant Professor of Law at Stanford Law School. She is the author of The Other American Law and The Supreme Court strikes again — this time at tribal sovereignty. She is tribally enrolled at Nambé Pueblo.
- Matthew L.M. Fletcher is the Harry Burns Hutchins Collegiate Professor of Law at Michigan Law. He sits as the Chief Justice of the Pokagon Band of Potawatomi Indians and the Poarch Band of Creek Indians. He is the author of American Indian Education: Counternarratives in Racism, Struggle, and the Law and Ghost Road: Anishinaabe Responses to Indian-Hating. He is a member of the Grand Traverse Band.
This program is produced by Ankine Aghassian, Doug Becker, Mihika Chechi, Melissa Chiprin, and Sudd Dongre.
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