Introducing MSU’s American Indian Programs and Organizations Website

Welcome to the American Indian Programs and Organizations Web portal at Michigan State University. This is your connection to the university’s many resources for American Indian scholarship, outreach, and support services.

Michigan State is home to one of the nation’s most inclusive approaches to American Indian studies in the nation, offering a wide range of programs and organizations related to American Indians, exploring all aspects of indigenous life. MSU has a long history of sharing the knowledge and resources created at the university with surrounding communities, adding to the vitality and richness of American Indian life—in Michigan and beyond.

Annual American Indian Events at MSU

Indigenous Law and Policy Center Spring Speaker Series

Held in the spring semester, this speaker series includes authors of new books about Indian law or Indian country who are invited to speak at MSU College of Law by the Indigenous Law and Policy Center. Generally, the events are held during lunchtime in the Castle Board Room, located in the law school building.

Indigenous Law and Policy Center Annual Conference

Held in the fall semester, the ILPC annual conference brings together scholars, practitioners, judges, and community members to discuss issues surrounding a specific topic. Past topics have included the Indian Child Welfare Act, American Indian law and literature, the Indian Civil Rights Act, and the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples.

Report on Sex Trafficking of Indian Women and Girls in Minnesota

Devastating.

Here is the report from the Minnesota American Indian Women’s Resource Center, titled, “Shattered Hearts: The Commercial Sexual Exploitation of American Indian Women and Girls in Minnesota.”

Via Feminist Law Blog, and here and here and here.

Washington Court Reverses Conviction of Non-Indian Who Fished Under Tribal Law

Interesting case. Here is the opinion in State of Washington v. Guidry, a split court (2-1). Here are links to the briefs:

• Appellant’s Brief
• Respondent’s Brief
• Amicus Brief
• Reply to Amicus Brief

An excerpt:

Larry Guidry appeals his convictions for first degree fish dealing without a license, first degree fish trafficking without a license, four counts of participation of a non-Indian in an Indian fishery for commercial purposes, and four counts of first degree commercial fishing without a license. He argues that the trial court should have dismissed the charges against him because he lawfully fished under the Nisqually Tribal Code. He also argues that insufficient evidence supports his convictions for fish dealing and fish trafficking and that the trial court erred in imposing restitution. We reverse his convictions, vacate the restitution order, and remand.

Ninth Circuit Declines Jurisdiction over Pechanga Disenrollments

Here is the opinion in Jeffredo v. Macarro. There was a dissent (by a district court judge sitting by designation), however, which seemed to focus on the apparent “greed” of the Pechanga people in disenrolling tribal members.

Here are the briefs:

Jeffredo Opening Brief

Macarro Answering Brief

Jeffredo Reply Brief

An excerpt from the majority:

N. Carolina Appellate Court Upholds Poker Ban, Eastern Band Cherokee Gaming Compact

Here is the opinion in McCracken and Amick v. Perdue. News coverage here, via Pechanga.

An excerpt:

The State appeals from the trial court’s order entering judgment in favor of plaintiffs McCracken and Amick, Incorporated,doing business as The New Vemco Music Co., and its principal owner, Ralph Amick, on their claim that the State is not permitted under federal Indian gaming law to grant the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians of North Carolina (“the Tribe”) exclusive rights to conduct certain gaming on tribal land while prohibiting it throughout the rest of the State. We conclude, however, that state law providing the Tribe with exclusive gaming rights does not violate federal Indian gaming law. Consequently, we reverse the trial court’s order.

The state’s briefs are here (as well as the trial court opinion). Other briefs:

McCracken and Amick Brief

Tribal Amicus Brief

McCracken and Amick Reply to Amici

Filings in Michigan Asian Carp Suit

From SCOTUSBlog:

In a new phase of the decades-long feud over the environmental health of the Great Lakes, Michigan has sued Illinois directly in the Supreme Court, this time over Michigan’s worries about the invasion of a fish species threatening to local fish populations.  As an Original lawsuit, the case will be tried directly in the Supreme Court, if the Justices agree to let Michigan file its complaint.  (News articles describing the lawsuit are linked in the blog’s Tuesday Roundup, see below.)

Here is the question presented in the lawsuit:  “Whether, because of changed circumstances, the Court should reopen Nos. 1, 2, and 3, Original, to consider Michigan’s request for a Sujpplemental Decree to address a new and substantial infringement of Michigan’s rights — the threatened invasion of the Gr;eat Lakes by injurious fish species — resulting from the Lake Michigan diversion project created and as now maintained by Illinois, the [Metropolitan Water Recalamation District of Greater Chicago] District, and the {U.S. Army} Corps {of Engineers] that is the subject of this case.”

A fact sheet describing the background of the new fish controversy ishere. A news release from the Michigan attorney general’s office is here.  The text of a motion for a preliminary injunction is here The lawsuit itself — technically, a motion to reopen a 1980 Supreme Court decree and to issue a new ruling on the fish mgiration question – can be found here. A 142-page appendix is here.

Colorado v. Cash Advance Briefing Complete

The first round of briefs (state, anti-payday loan amici, etc.) is here. The responses (mostly tribal) are here. And the final brief (state’s reply brief — State Reply Brief).

News Coverage of Michigan v. Illinois/US in Asian Carp Suit

One question might be … why wait until the Supreme Court goes into its holiday recess?

From the Detroit News:

Detroit — Michigan Attorney General Mike Cox is calling on the U.S. Supreme Court to flex its muscle in the fight to keep invasive Asian carp from Lake Michigan. In a press conference this morning, Cox announced his intention to sue the State of Illinois, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and the Metropolitan Water Reclamation District of Greater Chicago to force them to close off waterways leading to the lake.

His move comes just weeks after authorities poisoned a section of the Chicago Sanitary and Shipping Canal to halt the spread of the carp, which are considered a major threat to the ecosystem of Lake Michigan. That project produced one Asian carp above an electrical barrier designed to keep the fish out of Lake Michigan.

“With the finding of (Asian carp) DNA within 6 miles of Lake Michigan recently … quite simply, now is the time,” Cox said. “These agencies have not acted quickly enough.”

Cox is calling for:

Movie Review of “Before Tomorrow”

From the Onion A.V. Club:

Billed as the third part of a trilogy that began with Zacharias Kunuk and Norman Cohn’s Atanarjuat: The Fast Runner and continued with their The Journals Of Knud Rasmussen, the melancholy drama Before Tomorrow features a different writer-director team, but has a look and mood similar to the earlier films. Co-directors Marie-Hélène Cousineau and Madeline Piujuq Ivalu (working from a novel by Jørn Riel) follow an Inuit tribe in 1840 as they go about their seasonal rituals of celebration, fishing, and storage, all while whispering among themselves about the strange ways of the white folks that some of their people have recently met. The movie primarily focuses on an old woman (played by Ivalu herself) and her grandson (Ivalu’s real-life grandson, Paul-Dylan Ivalu) as they travel to a remote island to dry meat, then get stranded under mysterious circumstances. As the movie’s title implies, everything is about to change for these two. These are the last happy days before destructive modernity encroaches.

Unlike its predecessors, Before Tomorrow is a little too enamored of the idea of unspoiled innocents corrupted by outsiders. The characters in Atanarjuat and Knud Rasmussen were more complicated and flawed, while here, they’re sweetly superior. (An on-the-nose “natives are people too” theme song by Kate and Anna McGarrigle is another major miscalculation.) Unintentional condescension aside, though, Before Tomorrow succeeds for the same reasons the earlier films did: Cousineau and Ivalu take the time to document a way of life from the inside, making old Inuit customs and domiciles seem inviting rather than alien. There’s a lot of chatter around the campfire and swapping of songs and stories—many of which seem unscripted—and even when the scope of Before Tomorrow narrows to two characters, the filmmakers make sure we keep hearing those characters’ voices. That’s a marked, welcome contrast to other movies about remote cultures, which often favor silence and stillness. Before Tomorrow has a different agenda. It’s set in a forbidding landscape at a dangerous time, and Cousineau and Ivalu show how companionship and shared tradition can go a long way toward sustaining people even in the face of personal devastation.

ICT Special Report on Domestic Violence in Indian Country

From ICT:

Part 1 of 4

Native American women experience the highest rates of Intimate Partner Violence of any ethnic group in the United States. Knowledge of the prevalence of IPV in Native American communities is an important starting point to understand the pervasiveness and importance of domestic violence in American Indian communities.

This article, the first in a series of four on IPV against Native women, explores the prevalence of IPV among Native Americans from the national to tribe-specific level, focusing on Native American communities in the Southwest. Although numbers will vary from community to community, health care personnel and prominent community members must be aware of the high prevalence in order to adequately respond to the needs of Native American women. The rates of domestic violence will not begin to decrease until the problem is recognized so resources can be mobilized in response.

A review of statistical research on the prevalence of intimate partner violence in Native populations provides the justification for studying this problem. However, a literature review can prove difficult because many studies are based on small reservation samples and cannot be extrapolated to a general population. In addition, national surveys often do not include a sufficient representative sample of Native women to provide reliable numbers according to an article in a 2006 American Journal of Public Health. Each study notes differences in study design, the definition of IPV, and the demographic characteristics of the study population, which complicates comparison and analysis. Because of these issues, this article uses a variety of sources, from national to tribe-specific, to provide a statistical base for the importance of the study on IPV in Native populations.