Tribe takes issue with article in The Economist based on flawed study
In 2014 alone – $808,225 in higher education and adult vocational grants, $400,000 in out-of-area health care payments, $1,324,711 to Tribal Elders individually and to Elders programs designed to “increase overall Tribal health and educational attainment and to ameliorate the negative effects of termination…”
These are just a few of the items toward which the Confederated Tribes of Siletz Indians put gaming funds in 2014, in addition to the per capita payment of $1,200 to Tribal members.
Receiving a payment of about $1,000 annually – that isn’t already dedicated to rent or mortgage, electric bills or the like – is a great benefit to Tribal members, but it certainly isn’t enough to quit your job and start loafing, no matter how attractive “sloth” may seem.
On Jan. 12-13, a reporter from The Economist magazine visited the Siletz Tribe and the community of Siletz ostensibly to gather information for a story on how casinos benefit Tribes.
On Jan. 15, an article appeared on The Economist’s website under the headline, “Of Slots and Sloth: How Cash from Casinos Makes Native Americans Poorer.”
The article relied on generalizations, anecdotes and one “study” of Northwest Tribes by a private attorney published in a student-run law review (Sovereignty, Economic Development and Human Security in Native American Nations by W. Gregory Guedel, published in the American Indian Law Journal).
That law review article drew a straight line from casino profits and per capita payments to poverty without identifying any other factors that could contribute to poverty.
Shawn Fremsted, a senior fellow with the Center for American Progress and a senior research associate with the Center for Economic and Policy Research, and Erik Stegman, an expert in American Indian and Alaska Native policy at the Center for American Progress, have criticized The Economist’s reliance on the law review article, stating, “In short, the study is absolutely useless in terms of providing meaningful evidence to support The Economist’s claim.”
Siletz Tribal Chairman Delores Pigsley pointed out that the law review article relied on faulty assumptions and mistakes of fact.
“One of the biggest problems is that the study includes ‘on-reservation population and poverty statistics,’ but the reporter presented these statistics as representative of the entire Tribe. No Tribe has all of its members living on the reservation,” said Pigsley.
The article states there are 2,452 Tribal members living on the reservation. Tribal data shows there are only 582. The Tribe has 4,984 enrolled Tribal members and only 1,188 live in the two counties where a casino employment commute would be practical.
The study included only 24 Tribes, .096 percent of the 250 Tribes with casinos. Not enough Tribes took part in this study to label all Native Americans as poorer because of casinos, as indicated in the headline of the article.
The Economist article also stated, “After the Supreme Court ruled in 1987 that Native American Tribes, being sovereign, could not be barred from allowing gambling, casinos began popping up on reservations everywhere.”
In reality, Tribes can have casinos only in states that already have some form of gambling. The report cited by the reporter says that 250 tribes (44 percent of the 566 federally recognized Tribes) have casinos in 28 states (56 percent of available states).
The reporter also wrote that, “… the biggest problem may be the way casino profits are sometimes disbursed … Per capita payments range from as little as a few hundred dollars a year to more than $100,000.”
Yet the reporter cites just one statistic on per capita payments, the one for the Siletz Tribe, and provides no information on other Tribes’ payments.
The reporter failed to mention any of the details provided by Tribal staff during a 30-minute interview, including how the Tribe uses the remaining 60 percent of gaming profits.
These include economic development funds, health care (medical, dental, optical), education scholarships, transportation, Elders social and recreational activities, Tribal language instruction and Tribal culture and history programs.
The reporter provided no information on the Tribe’s economic diversification efforts. The Siletz Tribe has RV parks, in Lincoln City and Salem; and several buildings that rent space to business tenants in Lincoln City, Depoe Bay, Portland, Salem and Eugene, plus an industrial property in Toledo. This information is contained in publications provided to the reporter.
Tribal members and the wider community also benefit from other resources gaming has made available, including more than $9 million distributed by the Siletz Tribal Charitable Contribution Fund. Overall, the Tribe has distributed more than $11.4 million through the charitable fund and other Tribal resources.
After reading The Economist article, the Tribe can only conclude that this reporter came to Siletz with a headline already in mind and was only looking for interviewees who would provide statements that support that story.
She apparently thought she found it in the two individuals she quoted – one of whom works and one who doesn’t – and in citing a “study” that appears to be as flawed in its “facts” as her article.
Author: Matthew L.M. Fletcher
Kyle Whyte on Food Justice and Collective Food Relations
Kyle Whyte has posted his paper, “Food Justice and Collective Food Relations,” on SSRN.
Here is the abstract:
Food justice is commonly understood as the norm that everyone should have access to safe, healthy and culturally-appropriate foods no matter one’s national origin, economic statuses, social identities, cultural membership, or disability. A second dimension of food justice, as commonly understood, is the norm that everyone who works within a food system, from restaurant servers to farm workers, should be paid livable and fair wages and work in safe conditions no matter one’s national origin, economic statuses, social identities, cultural membership, or disability. Another dimension of food justice, which is found in the words and writing of advocates but is perhaps less commonly appreciated, is that food justice should account for the value of food in relation to the self-determination of human groups such as urban communities of color, Indigenous peoples and migrant farmworkers, among many other groups. Reflecting on the claims of food justice advocates, my goal in this essay is to outline a norm of food justice that is based on the value of food in relation to the self-determination of human groups. In the essay, I begin by describing the first two dimensions of food justice; I then discuss the role of food in collective self-determination and introduce the idea of collective food relations, discussing in particular the role of manoomin (wild rice) in the collective self-determination of the Anishinaabek in the Great Lakes region; I then explain how disrupting collective food relations can be a form of food injustice; lastly, I discuss some specific further examples that illustrate these ideas.
“An Annotated Timeline of the Navajo Presidential Election Dispute”
Indian Law Jobs in New Mexico Bar Bulletin
Here.
I saw postings for an Isleta Pueblo judge and a Jicarilla water law attorney.
News Profile of Rob Porter and the First Tribal Marijuana Conference
Fourth Circuit Dismisses Yamassee Indian Tribe’s Pro Se Land Claims
Here are the materials in Yamassee Indian Tribe v. Allendale County Government:
Amerind Risk Management Corp. v. Blackfeet Housing — Complaint to Compel Arbitration
National Survey of Tribal Court Systems Descriptive Brochures — Expect Surveys to Arrive in February 2015
New Volume of North Dakota Law Review Features Three Indian Law Papers
Here:
90 N.D. L. Rev. 13
A Possible Solution to the Problem of Diminishing Tribal Sovereignty
– Hope Babcock
Abstract:
The capacity of Indian tribal sovereignty to protect tribes from outside encroachment and interference has steadily diminished from when the concept was first enunciated in the nineteenth century in the Marshall Indian Law Trilogy. This article assumes as a working premise that only bringing tribes into the Constitution as co-equal sovereigns will end the attrition. The article examines how this might happen, either through creative interpretation of existing constitutional text or by amending the Constitution. Each of these proposals is examined to see if it empowers tribes to manage their futures more effectively, is capacious enough to include the vast majority of tribes, maintains the union’s security and stability, and has political salience. The article concludes that only the creation of a virtual nationwide election district for all members of a tribe to elect tribal representatives to Congress will meet these criteria. The author concedes that the approach is novel, but hopes it is sufficiently viable to warrant further consideration by others.
90 N.D. L. Rev. 121
In Defense of Tribal Sovereign Immunity: A Pragmatic Look at the Doctrine as a Tool for Strengthening Tribal Courts
– Ryan Seelau
Abstract:
Although the doctrine of tribal sovereign immunity was recently upheld by the Supreme Court in Michigan v. Bay Mills Indian Community,1 its existence continues to be attacked as “antiquated” and leading to “unfair” results. While most defenses of tribal sovereign immunity focus on how the doctrine is a necessary part of sovereignty or how the doctrine is necessary for financial reasons, the more pragmatic benefits of tribal sovereign immunity have remained largely overlooked. Any desire to take tribal self-determination seriously and to allow Native nations to produce their own robust and capable governing systems means re-examining the role tribal sovereign immunity plays in such efforts. This article conducts such a re-examination. First, it takes note of the extensive research indicating that strong tribal courts are generally necessary for healthy and resilient Native nations. Second, it looks at the six components that comprise strong tribal courts: (1) accountability; (2) capacity; (3) funding; (4) independence; (5) jurisdiction; and (6) legitimacy. Finally, it argues that the strategic use of tribal sovereign immunity has positive effects on all six components of strong tribal court systems. In essence, tribal sovereign immunity is a valuable tool that Native nations can use to strengthen their own courts, institutions, and nations themselves.
90 N.D. L. Rev. 191
Native Americans – Sovereign Immunity: Determining Whether the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act Abrogates Tribal Sovereign Immunity for Lawsuits Arising Outside of Indian Country
Michigan v. Bay Mills Indian Cmty, 134 S.Ct. 2024
– Mitchell G. Enright
Abstract:
In Michigan v. Bay Mills Indian Community, the United States Supreme Court held that the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act (“IGRA”) did not implicitly or explicitly abrogate the common law doctrine of tribal sovereign immunity so as to allow a state to file a federal suit against an Indian tribe for illegal gambling activity taking place outside of Indian country. The Court reasoned that neither the text nor the legislative history of IGRA indicated a desire on the part of Congress to abrogate tribal immunity to allow for such suits; the fact that IGRA specifically addresses activities occurring inside of Indian country was dispositive to the Court that Congress chose to leave traditional state-law remedies in place when illegal gaming activity occurs outside of Indian country. The Court was also unwilling to overrule its previous decision of Kiowa Tribe of Oklahoma v. Manufacturing Technologies, Inc., which expanded the doctrine of tribal sovereign immunity to cover suits arising from contracting disputes with non-Indian businesses off-reservation. The Court’s holding in Bay Mills clarifies the doctrine of tribal sovereign immunity within the controversial context of Indian gaming. However, this will not result in any expansion of Indian gaming beyond Indian country. On the contrary, the Court’s decision makes clear that states will continue to have a number of remedies available to them to prevent Indian gaming off-reservation, just not the sort of federal suit at issue in this case.
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