Sam Deloria on Indian Law in the Supreme Court

Here. The first part of this article is coverage of the American Indian Law Center’s “First Thirteen” event. Sam’s commentary is below:

But the judges are not so clearly divided pro and con Indian cases either, as is seen in the recent Jicarilla 8-1 vote, which resulted in protection of privileged communications between trust administrators and the government, so it could be a long wait. And long-time Indian policy analyst Sam Deloria (Standing Rock Sioux), is not content to wait, and argues for a new approach.

Deloria, who currently heads the American Indian Graduate Center and served as director of the American Indian Law Center since the 1970s, shepherding many future attorneys through the Pre-Law Summer Institute, declared, “It’s not going to do us any good to keep constantly complaining that they’re not accepting our arguments. And, I think it would make much better sense to think very deeply about what it is that seems to be troubling them, and I think what troubles them is, what we want.

“It’s not that they don’t understand Indian law, it’s that the version of Indian law that we keep urging on them unsuccessfully, they don’t buy it. And one of the reasons they don’t buy it is they don’t see clearly what the outlines are of tribal powers that we’re talking about and because they’re afraid of what lawyers call ‘the slippery slope’– that if they let these guys do this, then what’s next?

“They’re very skeptical about going along with tribal claims because they just don’t understand what it is we’re talking about – I’d think we’d be much better off trying to depict to the court a workable set of governmental relationships that include tribal, state and federal and how that actually would work in practice—they don’t know the situation of tribal governments on the ground and so, they have misgivings. Well, let’s find out what their misgivings are, and address those, instead of just coming back every time quoting cases from the 1830s, or cases from the 1950’s and early 60’s, let’s go back and see what their problem is and try to address their problem.”

Continue reading on Examiner.com First Indian Law pioneers to Supreme Court and Deloria offers a fresh approach – Albuquerque Judaism | Examiner.com http://www.examiner.com/judaism-in-albuquerque/first-indian-law-pioneers-to-supreme-court-and-a-new-approach#ixzz1rXqgI8kT