Three Tribal Nations (Pueblo of Isleta, Prairie Band Potawatomi Nation, and Cheyenne Arapaho Tribes) along with Native students amended challenges against the United States Department of the Interior, the Bureau of Indian Education, and the United States Department of Education for unlawfully failing to consult with Tribal Nations on two sets of key agency actions directly impacting the education of Native American students.
You can see previous posts on this case here.
Here is the opinion in Sauk-Suiattle Indian Tribe v. State of Washington.
Available briefs:
Lower court materials here.
Federal agency leaders and tribal representatives on the Bears Ears Commission stand in front of the newly installed Bears Ears National Monument sign on June 18, 2022. Pictured from left, former Agriculture Department Under Secretary Homer L. Wilkes, Ute Indian Tribe Business Committee Member Christopher Tabbee, Ute Mountain Ute Councilman Malcolm Lehi, Zuni Tribe Lt. Gov. Carleton R. Bowekaty, Hopi Chair Timothy Nuvangyaoma, Navajo Nation Executive Assistant Davis Filfred and BLM Director Tracy Stone-Manning. Photo courtesy of the BLM
On August 14, Earthjustice reported that Kimmerle Mining staked seven mining claims on lands stripped of protection when President Trump issued a proclamation reducing Bears Ears National Monument. Kimmerle Mining recorded the claims on July 14, one day after Trump signed the proclamation. The claims reportedly target uranium, vanadium, copper, and precious metals. The lands aren’t scheduled to reopen to mineral entry until September 11, so these filings show how quickly mining interests are moving to position themselves to benefit. Earthjustice has the details and a map of the claims.
Trump’s proclamation reduced the monument from approximately 1.36 million acres to 121,100 acres, a reduction of more than 90 percent. The proclamation also terminated the Bears Ears Commission, eliminating the formal management role of the Hopi Tribe, Navajo Nation, Ute Indian Tribe, Ute Mountain Ute Tribe, and Pueblo of Zuni. Federal officials immediately removed the five Tribal Nations’ seals from monument signs.
The five Tribes of the Bears Ears Commission understand Bears Ears as an interconnected living cultural landscape. Trump’s proclamation instead describes the region as a collection of uranium, vanadium, copper, and other minerals “critical to national security.” The Department of the Interior had promised to meet with the Bears Ears Commission before changing the monument’s boundaries or management, but the Commission reports that no meaningful government-to-government consultation occurred. The Commission had finalized the Bears Ears Resource Management Plan in January 2025, a milestone described as “a historic achievement for the management of Bears Ears National Monument that underscores the power of unity, trust, and shared responsibility in land stewardship.”
Trump’s invocation of national security should be understood within the historical context of uranium extraction in Indian Country. Uranium mining began on the Navajo Nation during WWII to secure fuel for nuclear weapons, and production continued in strength until the 1980s. The mining resulted in Native miners and families experiencing deadly illnesses, contaminated homes and water, and hundreds of abandoned mines. More than 500 abandoned uranium mines remain on or near Navajo lands, and the federal government still has no comprehensive estimate of what completing the cleanup will cost. Members of the Ute Mountain Ute Tribe’s White Mesa community also continue to raise concerns about the uranium mill operating only five miles from their homes and Bears Ears.
The President’s Bears Ears Proclamation invokes national security to promote more uranium mining, despite the fact that the past human and environmental costs of historic uranium mining have never been fully remedied.
Additional Resources
What the Mines Left Behind by Elise Wild for Native News Online (August 21, 2026)
The History of Uranium Mining and the Navajo People, Doug Bruggest, PhD, MS, and Rob Goble, PhD, American Journal of Public Health (Sept. 2022, Vol. 92, No. 9)
On August 28, 2026, the Turtle Mountain Band of Chippewa Indians, the Spirit Lake Tribe, and individual Native American plaintiffs in North Dakota moved for leave to file an amended complaint in the U.S. District Court for the District of North Dakota in Turtle Mountain Band of Chippewa Indians v. Howe. This filing follows a May 2026 U.S. Supreme Court decision sending the case back to the lower courts for reconsideration under a new legal standard.
You can see previous posts on this case here.
Kekek Stark has posted “Tribal Law Interpretations of Justice and Justiciability” on SSRN.
Highly recommended. More great work on Anishinaabe Inaakoniewin from Prof. Stark.
Here is the abstract:
In the field of tribal law, the term justice is a commonly used term, yet the term has often gone undefined. So how is justice as an Indigenous concept defined? What does justice as an Indigenous concept entail? When is a dispute (or a tribal court action) justiciable? This article will address these questions. As evidenced from the story of The Woman Who Married A Beaver we can think of justice as inherently tied to our preexisting obligations and responsibilities to one another through the implementation of thoughtful decisions, made on behalf of the people through the achievement and maintenance of harmony, balance, and reciprocal kinship relationships. Utilizing this understanding, this article examines the concept of Indigenous justice through four basic principles: harmony, relationality, inclusivity; and responsibility. This article proceeds to illustrate examples of how the justiciability concepts of standing, ripeness, mootness, and the political question doctrine apply in tribal forums and provides tribal courts and tribal law practitioners recommendations for the future. In summary, this article urges tribal practitioners and tribal courts to utilize the principles embodied in the concept of Daabidawise Onaakonigewin (justice). As such, tribal practitioners and tribal courts will be able to recognize the reciprocal kinship relationships, responsibilities, duties, and obligations of all those that encompass Indigenous justice.
Michelle Bryan and Kekek Stark have posted “Restoring the Full Waterway Bundle (Part I): A Reckoning for Indigenous Title to Submerged Lands” on SSRN.
Highly recommended. Any work, especially great work like this, that connects Indigenous philosophies to federal Indian law is valuable work.
Here is the abstract:
It is time for federal submerged lands law to face a day of reckoning. This reckoning is necessary because assumed state sovereignty of submerged lands lacks a legal basis in basic property law, the Constitution, the federal trust relationship, and Indigenous law. Instead, it stems from antiquated rulings formulated, in Justice Gorsuch’s words, within the “atmosphere” of colonialism. In many instances, the historical record reflects that Tribes had neither ceded aboriginal title to such beds when a particular state was created, nor had Congress clearly abolished such title, as the law requires.
Reckoning is a strong word, but so is the authority and opportunity that comes with sovereign bed ownership. For many tribes, their creation stories, ceremonies, food sources, economies, environmental health, and cultural touchstones center upon specific waters believed to be included within their homelands, hunting and fishing grounds, and gathering places. But reckoning is not the end of the story. In the spirit of reconciliation, this article provides a reassessment of Indigenous title to submerged lands and argues that these lands are spaces of common governance in which the three sovereigns—federal, tribal, and state—share authority to manage a vital resource on which all peoples depend.
Part I begins with a discussion of why submerged lands ownership is fundamental to tribal culture and sovereignty. Part II then confront the atmosphere of colonialism that has excluded tribes from water spaces. We summarize the flawed legal test from United States v. Holt State Bank—the case most often used to determine Indian title to the submerged lands of navigable waterways—and explain why the test is both unlawful and inadequate to fulfill the United States’ trust obligations to tribes. In Part III, we propose a reckoning—a legal test better aligning with the Court’s newer jurisprudence in cases like Minnesota v. Mille Lacs Band of Chippewa Indians and Herrera v. Wyoming. Ultimately, we advocate for the joint sovereign enterprise of placekeeping—caretaking the cultural, historical, ecological, economic, and social well-being of these spaces that serve as lifeways for us all. Through a corrected legal test to submerged lands, we will begin rebuilding the waterway “bundle” as an integrated legal whole.
From Seneca Nation President J. Conrad Seneca:
Lake Ontario derives its name from Indigenous roots. In our traditional Seneca language, its name is sga:nyodai:yoh, meaning ‘beautiful lake.’ Long before the United States existed, and before settlers brought the English language to our lands, our Seneca and Haudenosaunee ancestors traveled Lake Ontario and surrounding waterways for many reasons, including diplomacy among our nations. Now, we are seeing the exact opposite of diplomacy.
The action that President Trump is taking is starkly un-presidential and demeaning to his office and his standing as the leader of the free world. His blatant disrespect toward the Seneca people, other Haudenosaunee nations, and all Indigenous people is unacceptable.
The President cannot assert ownership over our culture or erase it through irresponsible political action. His order should be rescinded, and the name Lake Ontario should be left as it is, reflective of the Seneca people, other Haudenosaunee nations and all Indigenous people surrounding the lake.
To us, Lake Ontario is not a political pawn. It does not separate the countries of the United States and Canada. It is all Indigenous land, which has been occupied by Indigenous people since time immemorial.
In 1794, President George Washington and the Seneca and other Haudenosaunee nations signed the Treaty of Canandaigua, promising to live in peace and friendship with one another. The United States also promised our people the free use and enjoyment of our lands forever. President Trump’s aggression toward our culture with his Executive Order violates that peace, friendship and commitments of the Canandaigua treaty. This is the latest in a long history of willful attempts to disregard the United States’ commitments to the Seneca and other Haudenosaunee nations. President Trump needs to be reminded of those commitments.
I would also remind the President of the tenets of the United States Constitution, where Article 6 clearly states that treaties are the ‘supreme Law of the Land,’ and need to always be honored as such.
We will always call Lake Ontario by the name derived from the language of our ancestors – the name that, like the strength and influence of the Seneca people, will live on forever, long after the intrusive political tirades of individual men.
All Native Nations need to stand united to vocally and forcefully reject this change. We are also calling on all federal, state and local representatives – regardless of political party – to stand with the Seneca Nation and oppose the President’s Executive Order.
Scholars of critical toponymy have long observed that naming geographic features is an exercise of political power as colonial and imperial governments use renaming to inscribe their authority onto Indigenous landscapes, to legitimate their territorial claims, and to displace Indigenous relationships to place. Trump’s Executive Order is explicit about doing just that. It states that the lake “has long been an integral asset to American exploration, settlement, commerce, and defense” and it notes that the US “claims most of the Lake’s volume.”
Additional Resources
The Haudenosaunee Environmental Task Force Position on the Great Lakes (Sept. 9, 2005)
Resources on critical toponymy, which treats geographic naming as an exercise of political power rather than a neutral labeling practice
Turtle Talk 
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