Matthew L.M. Fletcher

Illinois COA Reverses Termination of Indian Parent’s Rights for ICWA Notice Violations

October 22, 2025Matthew L.M. Fletcher

Here is the opinion in In re K.F.:

In re K.F. 2025 IL App (5th) 250410.pdf Download

AALS Panel on The Rule of Law, Lawyers, and Indigenous Rights

October 22, 2025October 22, 2025Matthew L.M. Fletcher

The Rule of Law, Lawyers, and Indigenous Rights
Date: Wednesday, October 22 at 3:00 pm ET/2:00 pm CT/1:00 pm MT/12:00 pm PT/9:00 am HT

Register.

Panelists:

Nazune Menka, Assistant Professor of Law and Faculty Director of the Northwest Center for Indigenous Law, Seattle University School of Law

Monte Mills, Charles I. Stone Professor of Law and the Director of the Native American Law Center (NALC), University of Washington School of Law

Elizabeth Hidalgo Reese, Assistant Professor of Law, Stanford Law School

Heather Whiteman Runs Him, Associate Clinical Professor; Director, Tribal Justice Clinic, University of Arizona James E. Rogers College of Law

Sponsored by the AALS Sections on: Associate Deans for Academic Affairs and Research, Critical Theories, Leadership, New Law Professors, Pro Bono & Access to Justice, Professional Responsibility, and Women in Legal Education

Indigenous nations and their citizens have a unique relationship with the United States and its legal system. From having their rights adjudicated by the “Courts of the conqueror,” to the overarching plenary power exercised by the U.S. Congress, to the negotiation of treaties with a president often deemed the “great white father,” the American rule of law and role of lawyers in upholding it have significantly and disparately impacted Indigenous sovereignty and individual rights. A modern renaissance of that sovereignty and the expanding study and understanding of the role it has played in shaping the nation’s structures of power is now beginning to reshape how the law and lawyers should view Indigenous rights in relation to law, justice, and the legal profession. This panel centers the rights of Indigenous nations and their citizens to consider what the American rule of law has meant and how the assertion of Indigenous sovereignty is fundamentally changing those historical (mis-)conceptions.

*What this panel might have looked like in 1977.*

Evan Burnick on a Canon Against Conquest

October 21, 2025Matthew L.M. Fletcher

Evan D. Burnick has published “Canon Against Conquest” in the University of Illinois Law Review.

The abstract:

The interpretive rules that require judges to read treaties, statutes, and other legal texts in favor of Native nations and people have always been contested. But seldom has the future of the “Indian canon” seemed so uncertain. Several sitting Supreme Court Justices have questioned the legitimacy of the Indian canon, expressing skepticism about the roots of the specific rules that constitute it and raising doubts about whether “Congress has always framed statutes in a way that are favorable to Indian tribes.” Other Justices have written or joined opinions that have narrowed and diluted the Indian canon.

This Article maps the origins and development of the Indian canon and defends it on originalist and textualist grounds. It then contends that the canon should be codified to ensure its survival. This codification should be expressly grounded in a constitutional commitment to tribal sovereignty. Tribal sovereignty was part of the law of nations at the Founding; it was built into the original meaning and structure of the Constitution; and it persists today, in spite of state and federal efforts to extinguish it.

Codification is necessary because it is not enough to answer criticisms of the Indian canon from the standpoint of originalism, textualism, or any other methodology that holds sway on the Supreme Court. The canon has been diminished, disparaged, and nearly discarded by judges of a variety of methodological persuasions. Codification will increase the likelihood that the canon will be deployed to protect Native lands, governance, and culture. As an act of legislative constitutionalism, it will be at once entitled to respect and tailored to receive it.