WEE Gather Together in Thanksgiving for November 26,2015

[Demeter]

3. The Struggle for Justice on Tribal Lands

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/11/25/opinion/the-struggle-for-justice-on-tribal-lands.html

THE Thanksgiving we now celebrate began in partnership. Long after Pilgrim and Wampanoag families first shared their respective harvests, Native American communities continue to work, formally and informally, with many of their neighbors. For example, before the Green Bay Packers take to Lambeau Field tomorrow night, thousands of fans will enter the historic stadium through its eastern entrance, named the Oneida Nation Gate in partnership with Green Bay’s closest tribal neighbor, the Oneida Nation of Wisconsin. Like many Indian tribes, the Oneida support numerous institutions of government, run schools and day care centers and employ hundreds of non-Indians.

But tribal governments now face a grave threat to this kind of partnership and to their very sovereignty. The danger comes from an action brought by the Dollar General Corporation. On Dec. 7, the Supreme Court is scheduled to hear oral arguments in a case regarding alleged sexual assaults by a Dollar General manager against a tribal minor, a 13-year-old who apprenticed in a store on Choctaw tribal lands in Mississippi. While working in partnership with non-Indians remains an important part of what tribal governments do, ensuring the welfare of tribal members is an essential function of their power. This case has the potential to undermine the authority of tribes to do both. In keeping with the fraught legal and political relationship between Indians and the federal government, this case, Dollar General v. Mississippi Band of Choctaw Indians, is deeply rooted in our shared history. And as its focus has expanded, it is no longer exclusively about the child who was originally at its center.

Since its inception, the United States government has recognized that tribal governments have authority over their lands, their members and, in certain situations, those who enter their territories. This recognition is rooted in the Constitution’s Commerce Clause, in nearly two centuries of Supreme Court rulings and, crucially, in generations of customary practices between tribes and their neighbors. By asserting that tribes, despite generations of these partnerships with non-Indians, lack jurisdiction over businesses in Indian country, Dollar General is challenging this historic principle of American law. This is not the first time tribes have fought to preserve their authority over non-Indians. For example, in 1978, the Supreme Court ruled in Oliphant v. Suquamish Indian Tribe that only the federal government could punish non-Indians for crimes committed on tribal lands.

But decades later, it was Native American survivors of domestic violence who led efforts to have Congress reauthorize previously lost forms of tribal authority over domestic violence. This victory came not only after growing concerns over lawlessness in Indian country but also after the harrowing testimony of survivors during the run-up to the 2013 reauthorization of the Violence Against Women Act...