“Petitioners are the non-Indian operators of a
business on a tribal reservation. Respondent Doe is a
member of the tribe. Doe seeks to hale petitioners
into his tribal court, asking the tribe to award him
millions of dollars in damages (including punitive
damages) for an alleged violation of unwritten tribal
tort law by one of petitioners’ employees.”
Additional Briefs HERE
From the New York Times:
President Obama on Friday announced that he had rejected the request from a Canadian company to build the Keystone XL oil pipeline, ending a seven-year review that had become a flash point in the debate over his climate policies.
Article is here.
Begaye: Warnings there, but no one did anything
From the Durango Herald here
From the New York Times:
The court has issued liberal decisions in 54 percent of the cases in which it had announced decisions as of June 22, according to the Supreme Court Database, using a widely accepted standard developed by political scientists. If that trend holds, the final percentage could rival the highest since the era of the notably liberal court of the 1950s and 1960s led by Chief Justice Earl Warren. The closest contenders are the previous term and the one that started in 2004 and ended with the announcement of Justice Sandra Day O’Connor’s retirement.
From The Detroit News:
“More than two decades after Eastern Michigan University retired its Hurons logo because of offensive stereotyping of Native Americans, the school is in the midst of a deja vu.”
“On May 21, the Justice Department announced the Tribal Equal Access to Voting Act. “I am calling on Congress to help remove the significant and unnecessary barriers that for too long have confronted American Indians and Alaska Natives attempting to cast their ballots,” said Attorney General Loretta E. Lynch.”
Here.
It is with a mixture of great pride and sadness that Kanji & Katzen, PLLC, announces that Ethel Branch is leaving the firm to become the eleventh Attorney General of the Navajo Nation. Since joining the firm in 2012, Ethel has served our clients with great distinction. She has brought her creative legal mind, unwavering attention to detail, and stellar work ethic to bear on matters ranging from natural resources protection to the enforcement of gaming compacts. Moreover, as co-chair of the Seattle Human Rights Commission, Ethel was instrumental in the City’s establishment of Indigenous Peoples Day and in the Commission’s decision to call for a boycott of corporate sponsors of the Washington NFL football team, a call the firm was pleased to heed. Ethel has been a wonderful colleague, and we have benefited greatly from her intellect, energy, kindness, and humor.
In short, Kanji & Katzen will be very sorry to see Ethel go. However, we know that she will bring the same qualities that have made her such a valuable colleague and attorney to her new position. As the head of the Navajo Nation Department of Justice, Ethel will have the opportunity to discharge what she rightly views as a sacred responsibility to her own Nation, supervising a highly qualified team of lawyers engaged in an array of challenging and important legal matters on behalf of the country’s largest Indian nation. We have no doubt that she will work tirelessly to protect and advance the interests not only of the Nation but of Indian country more generally. We wish Ethel the very best in her new endeavor.
The New York Times reports that the Pine Ridge Reservation has lost nine young people between the ages of 12 and 24 to suicide since December; at least 103 more have attempted suicide in that same period.
Some of the earliest surviving art by native North Americans left America long ago. Soldiers, traders and priests, with magpie eyes for brilliance, bundled it up and shipped it across the sea to Europe. Painted robes, embroidered slippers and feathered headdresses tinkling with chimes found their way into cupboards in 18th-century London and Paris, and lay there half-forgotten. Continue reading
Seattle Human Rights Commission
1963 – 2015 · 52 years of championing human rights and fostering a just future
March 9, 2015
Human Rights Commission Calls on City to Urge Water Quality Standards Protective of Health and Human Rights; Announces a Seattle Public Hearing on the Proposed Standards
For information contact:
Ethel Branch
(206) 344-8100
ethel.billie@gmail.com
SEATTLE–Today the Seattle Human Rights Commission sent letters to the Mayor and City Council, urging them adopt a position on Washington State’s proposed revised Water Quality Standards (WQS) supportive of health and human rights. The Commission stated in their letter that “Our City residents and our economy are strongly rooted in fish. City residents should be able to eat fish caught in Washington waters without fearing that they have exposed themselves to harmful levels of toxics or placed themselves at undue risk of cancer.” Accordingly, the Commission asked the City to support the proposed resetting of the State’s fish consumption rate to an amount that will allow Washingtonians to healthfully eat one fish meal a day (175 g/day). Existing standards only protect Washington fish consumers in safely eating one fish meal a month (6.5 g/day). The Commission also urged the City to oppose the State’s proposed tenfold increase to Washingtonians’ cancer risk level. The fish consumption rate and the cancer risk level feed into a formula that the State uses to set limits on the amounts of toxic pollutants that can be released into the State’s waterways. In the course of a week, over a thousand Washingtonians—many Seattleites—have signed onto comments via change.org that urge the State to take this more health and human rights-based approach to revising our Water Quality Standards. Continue reading
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