Job Summary: The Legal Advocacy Project Attorney is an experienced attorney who will provide civil legal assistance to domestic violence, sexual assault, stalking and dating violence victims in cases relating to their victimization.
Background: The Tulalip Tribes Legacy of Healing (LOH) Program initiated services in 1998 through the STOP Violence Against Indian Women grant. LOH seeks to ensure the rights of all individuals to a safe and secure environment and to empower those who are being oppressed by reducing trauma and ending re-victimization resulting in the protection of future generations. The LOH Legal Advocacy Project is a new grant project funded by the Department of Justice Office on Violence Against Women. The LOH Legal Advocacy Project will provide holistic legal representation to victims of domestic violence, dating violence, sexual assault, and stalking.
The LOH Legal Advocacy Project will be supported by the Tulalip Office of Civil Legal Aid (TOCLA). TOCLA focuses on civil legal issues that affect tribal members’ safety, family, and access to services and education. In cooperation with TOCLA, the LOH Legal Advocacy Project will deliver a responsive system to victims with immediate access to legal services.
Author: Kate E. Fort
Toronto Star Column on Elsipogtog and Canadian Law
Here.
In 1997, the landmark Supreme Court Decision in Delgamuukw finally clarified that even under Canadian law, Aboriginal title to most of the land within British Columbia’s provincial borders had never been extinguished. This ruling had immediate implications for other areas of the country where no treaties ceding land ownership were ever signed. One day, Canadians woke up to a legal reality in which millions of acres of land were recognized as never having been acquired by the Crown, and that elephant has been occupying our national room ever since.
Unfortunately, this glaring issue did not seem to percolate into the wider Canadian consciousness, and many people remain unaware of it. In 1999, the Supreme Court passed down another judgement confirming that the Peace and Friendship Treaties of 1760-1761 did not cede land or resources. This cannot be emphasized strongly enough: the Mi’kmaq never gave up legal rights to their land or resources. Canada does not own the land that the people of Elsipogtog are defending.
This is not conspiracy theory, or indigenous interpretation. This is Canadian law, interpreted by the Supreme Court of Canada, applying Canadian constitutional principles. Yet somehow, this most important fact is left out of most reports on Elsipogtog as though it is barely relevant.
Taskforce on Violence Against American Indian Children to Hold First Public Hearing In North Dakota
Release here.
The advisory committee will convene four public hearings across the country beginning in Bismarck, N.D., Dec. 9, focusing on violence in children’s homes, schools and communities in Indian country. Associate Attorney General Tony West will join the task force at the first hearing in Bismarck. The other hearings will be held in Phoenix, Ariz., Fort Lauderdale, Fla. and Anchorage, Alaska early in 2014.
Fredericks Peebles Associate Attorney Job Posting
Here.
USET Gaming Resolution Opposing Exclusivity Agreements Infringing on Neighboring Tribes
Here.
WHEREAS,
certain gaming Tribes, in order to eliminate competition, have sought to constrain the ability of neighboring nations to conduct Class III gaming on their lands by obtaining from the state government a promise of “geographic exclusivity” pursuant to which the state agrees to not allowany Class III gaming on all or a portion of the lands of such neighboring Indian nations; andWHEREAS,such agreements blatantly infringe upon the sovereign rights of neighboring Indian nations andabrogate a state government’s statutory obligation, under IGRA, to negotiate, in good faith, a Class III compact with any resident Indian nation that desires to conduct Class III gaming anywhere within such nation’s borders;
NCJFCJ Seeks Senior Policy Analyst
Or as some us might call it, “Gina Jackson’s Job.”
The National Council of Juvenile and Family Court Judges (NCJFCJ) seeks a Senior Policy Analyst in their Juvenile Law’s Child Abuse & Neglect program.
The minimum requirements for this position include a degree from an accredited university and at least five years of experience in child welfare, domestic violence, or juvenile/family law-related field. Preference will be given to candidates with a graduate degree in social work, public administration, law, political science, sociology, or closely related field preferred (a JD is particularly desirable). Substantial experience working with tribes and tribal courts, along with experience and knowledge of delinquency, dependency, or domestic violence systems, ICWA, and VAWA are key ingredients for the Senior Policy Analyst position.
This position will serve as the primary staff liaison to the Tribal Court Judicial Leadership Committee and as an internal staff resource on tribal court/tribal issues. A strong emphasis is on providing public presentations and/or on-site technical assistance to tribal and state courts as well as critical thinking, analytical ability, writing policy briefs and papers, and working collaboratively with partners and system representatives. Applicants must have strong organizational skills with both a broad vision and attention to detail, comprehensive computer skills, and a willingness and ability to travel nationwide. Occasional lifting up to 50 lbs. may be required
For more information visit here.
Prof. Karen Tani Writes About “Remembering the ‘Forgotten Child'” in Light of Adoptive Couple at Jotwell
Here.
These revelations are sure to disturb any reader, but the point of Jacobs’s important article is not to expose adoption proponents as disingenuous or malevolent. It is to place an ongoing phenomenon—Indian children’s disproportionately high rate of separation from their families—in proper historical context. (P. 154.) “It is no coincidence,” Jacobs writes, “that the IAP arose during the era in which the federal government promoted termination [of tribal nations’ special status] and relocation policies for American Indians.” (P. 152.) Adoptions enabled the federal government to terminate its responsibilities, child by child, by shifting them to “the ultimate ‘private’ sector.” (P.154.) By extension, Jacobs argues, adoptive families also advanced the government’s long-term “effort[] to eliminate Indianness.” (P. 154.) This, Jacobs demonstrates, was the backdrop for the ICWA. When tribal leaders and advocacy organizations convinced Congress to enact the new law, it was a small victory in a long war. And when plaintiffs invoke the ICWA today, they raise a hard-won shield.
We agree that Margaret Jacobs “Remembering the ‘Forgotten Child’: The American Indian Child Welfare Crisis of the 1960s and 1970s” 37 American Indian Quarterly 136 (2013) is an excellent and important article.
ICWA Jurisdiction Case out of North Carolina
Finding the tribe, not the state, has exclusive jurisdiction over child welfare issues arising on tribal land. Also interesting is the state courts’ continued resistance to recognizing tribal-state agreements surrounding ICWA (pp 9-12) (see, eg, In re R.S. (Minn. 2011)).
For purposes of the ICWA, Ellen’s domicile was that of her
parents. See Miss. Band of Choctaw Indians v. Holyfield, 490
U.S. 30, 48, 104 L. Ed. 2d 29, 46 (1989). At the time DSS filed
the juvenile petition on 8 November 2011, respondents were
domiciled in Cherokee, North Carolina, within the Tribe’s Qualla
Boundary land trust.4 Therefore, this case is governed by 25
U.S.C. § 1911, which grants exclusive jurisdiction to the tribal court, “except where such jurisdiction is otherwise vested in
the State by existing Federal law.” 25 U.S.C. § 1911(a).
In re Z.A.: Stackbridge or Stockbridge
Here.
California Court of Appeals, 4th district, 2nd division, remands for DPPS to notify the proper tribe:
Here, DPSS was informed at the earliest point in the proceedings that the biological grandmother was an enrolled member of a tribe and that mother, herself, was an enrolled member of an Indian tribe. DPSS was therefore aware that an Indian child might be the subject of the involuntary custody proceeding. The problem arose when mother completed the ICWA 020 form, in which she listed the possible tribe to which she belonged as the “Stackbridge” tribe. Without conducting any inquiry on her own, the social worker accepted information from an unnamed noticing clerk indicating that the “Stackbridge” tribe did not exist, and did not send any notice to that tribe.
Without difficulty, we found the tribe. The Department of Interior’s list of “Indian Entities Recognized and Eligible to Receive Services From the Bureau of Indian Affairs” (otherwise known as the list of Federally Recognized Tribes) includes the “Stockbridge Munsee Community, Wisconsin.” (77 Fed.Reg. 47868, 47871 [No. 155, 2012].) The Stockbridge–Munsee Community of Wisconsin reveals that the tribe descended from a group of Mohican Indians who joined the Oneida Indians in New York in 1785, and, together, both tribes were relocated to Wisconsin. (Stockbridge–Munsee Band of Mohican Indians, http:// witribes.wi.gov/docview.asp?docid=19080 & locid=57 [as of Aug. 31, 2013], p. 2.)
Tulsa World Article on the Standing Our Ground for Veronica Brown Group
Here.
Stand Our Ground will become a permanent program under the umbrella of the Lenapeowsi Foundation, a nonprofit group that teaches stomp dancing and other elements of tribal culture.
Veronica was enrolled in a stomp dance class, and that’s how Michael, as the foundation’s executive director, got to know her Cherokee family.
“I got to looking at the case and realized there were some major issues,” she said. “Then I realized that it wasn’t just this one case.”
While drawing attention to specific adoptions that might seem questionable, Stand Our Ground will also push for at least two specific reforms.
First, state officials should improve oversight of the Interstate Compact on the Placement of Children, a law that has been passed in all 50 states to regulate the movement of children across state lines in adoption cases.
“Oklahoma seems to be in the practice of signing ICPCs retroactively, after children have already left the state,” Michael said. “That needs to stop.”
Secondly, all birth parents even fathers should have to appear in front of a judge to surrender their rights before an adoption moves forward, Michael said.
Turtle Talk 
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