SAIGE is hosting its 5th annual conference this week at the Grand Traverse Resort. The program features several excellent, nationally-known speakers, including Johnny BearCub Stiffarm, Stephen Pevar, and Daniel Wildcat. Here is the agenda.
Michigan Indian
Greektown Casino Declares Bankruptcy
From Indianz:
The Sault Ste. Marie Tribe of Chippewa Indians announced that it has filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection for its commercial casino in Detroit, Michigan.
The tribe has a majority stake in Greektown Casino, one of three gaming facilities in the city. The tribe was facing state deadlines to improve its financial standing. The tribe says the casino is not broke but that it needs $140 million in financing to complete work on a permanent casino.
Get the Story:
Greektown Casino falls into Chapter 11 (The Detroit Free Press 5/30)
Unpaid bills delay casino’s expansion (The Detroit Free Press 5/30)
Keepers of the Fire: The Potawatomi Nation by John Low
Here is an outstanding powerpoint presentation about the history from pre-contact to modern day of the Pokagon Band of Potawatomi Indians. It’s a large pdf of the powerpoint.
University of Michigan Anishinaabemowin Classes Profiled
In USA Today:
DETROIT (AP) — The statistics might not be promising, but personal experience offers Brooke Simon hope that her ancestors’ language won’t disappear.
“I can walk down the street and hear someone yell ‘aanii!’ from across the street,” said the 20-year-old University of Michigan student, referring to a greeting in Ojibwe, or Anishinaabemowin. “Students aren’t afraid to use the language and learn about this language.”
Simon participates in the Ann Arbor university’s Program in Ojibwe Language and Literature, one of the largest of its kind in the nation. It seeks to teach and preserve the American Indian language spoken by about 10,000 in more than 200 communities across the Great Lakes region — but 80% of them are older than 60.
Pokagon Band Casino a Success
From Indianz:
Since opening last August, the casino owned by the Pokagon Band of Potawatomi Indians has become a tourist destination in southwestern Michigan.
The Four Winds Casino Resort has had a positive impact on the economy, a business leader said. Local hotels are booking more rooms, more restaurants and retail stores are being opened near the casino and more tour groups are inquiring about the area. “Four Winds is part of their visit and that’s what drew them to the area, but they’ve wanted to stay in a bed and breakfast and do other things,” Pam Sudlow told the Associated Press. “Our lodging properties have been benefiting because the casino is very short of rooms.” The success of the casino has the tribe thinking about an expansion, Chairman John Miller said.
Get the Story:
Four Winds casino creates new vacation destination (AP 5/27)
“American Indian Education” Published TODAY
My book, “American Indian Education: Counternarratives in Racism, Struggle, and the Law,” is being published today by Routledge (if the website is to be believed). You can download the introduction and table of contents on SSRN (here).
Commentary on the MichGO En Banc and Cert Petitions
MichGo’s attorney asserts a plan to file a cert petition (see below the fold for the news article), and even boasts that he has three votes for cert already — Scalia and Thomas because they dissented in the South Dakota case in 1996, and Roberts because he represented a party making a nondelegation claim to 25 U.S.C. sec. 465 in 1999/2000.
This is spurious, given very recent events.
The Department of Interior just issued nearly-final IGRA Section 20 [25 U.S.C. 2719] regulations. These were the regulations I was talking about in my ICT editorial (not knowing they were about to be finalized). The very existence of these regulations severely blunts Judge Brown’s dissent in the D.C. Circuit case. Here, the Secretary is finally agreeing to formalize restrictions on his discretion contained in section 5 of the IRA [25 U.S.C. 465] in the context of Section 20 trust acquisitions.
One could make a plausible claim that, to the extent the SCT would be persuaded by a solitary dissent in a very minor case (nationally), it is now all but a dead letter.
What the D.C. Circuit should do is amend its decision to reflect the existence of the new regs, adding another nail to the coffin of the Section 5 nondelegation argument.
Finally, as MichGO’s attorney should know, one solitary dissent does not a circuit split make.
John Shagonaby in the Allegan News re: Gun Lake Casino
From the Allegan News:
To the editor: In response to Kathy Cassady’s letter—“Think tribal ancestors wanted casino?” No, our ancestors simply wanted to retain our land, culture and sovereignty.
Upon learning that the U.S. Court of Appeals decided in yet another court case that the Gun Lake tribe has the right to build a casino, Chairman D.K. Sprague thanked the Creator because our families have suffered economically and socially for centuries; ever since we lost all the land everyone else currently enjoys, including Kathy Cassady.
Saginaw Chippewa v. Michigan Reservation Boundaries Update
Laches has reared its ugly head in this case of course. Pending are motions from the United States and the Tribe to strike witnesses and defenses relating to laches, impossibility, estoppel, etc., and a government motion for partial summary J on the defenses.
us-motion-to-strike-laches-witnesses
saginaw-chippewa-motion-to-strike-laches-defenses
city-of-mount-pleasant-response-to-tribe-motion
city-of-mount-pleasant-response-to-us-motion
isabella-county-response-to-both-motions-etc
michigan-response-to-tribe-motion
michigan-response-to-us-motion
Save the Date — MSU American Indian Identity Conference — October 16-17, 2008
NEOCOLONIAL INSCRIPTION AND PERFORMANCE
OF AMERICAN INDIAN IDENTITY
IN AMERICAN HIGHER EDUCATION
SAVE THE DATE
OCTOBER 16 & 17 2008
The conference will attempt to address and review issues of American Indian identity in higher education. Through this process, we hope to create and expand inter-community, inter-institutional and public dialogue on American Indians in higher education. The two day conference will examine key issues such as tribal sovereignty, faculty hiring, current university practices allowing self-identification, and explore who should represent American Indians in American Indian higher education programs and departments.
Turtle Talk 
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