Student Activities

UCLA Indigenous Peoples’ Journal of Law, Culture & Resistance Call for Submissions

Matthew L.M. Fletcher

The Indigenous Peoples’ Journal of Law, Culture & Resistance (IPJLCR) is currently accepting submissions for Volume 12, which has a target publication date of Spring 2027. Submissions are being accepted until Sun., March 15, 2026. Email submissions and any questions to: ipjlcr@lawnet.ucla.edu.

IPJLCR is an interdisciplinary law journal housed at the University of California, Los Angeles School of Law that focuses on Indigenous legal issues and publishes scholarly articles, legal commentary, poetry, songs, stories, artwork, and other media. We are soliciting scholarly articles, student comments, and art that centers on or relates to legal issues important to Indigenous communities in the United States and throughout the world. We also seek works on issues or aspects of life in Native communities that are impacted by law, whether tribal law or the laws of nation-states.  To access past issues, please visit https://escholarship.org/uc/uclalaw_ipjlcr.

Requirements:

  • Each submission should be sent as one Microsoft Word file with Bluebook formatted citations (22nd ed. 2025) in footnotes;
  • Articles should be less than or equal to 50 pages and include 12 pt Times New Roman font for the body of the manuscript, 10 pt Times New Roman font for footnotes, 1-inch margins, and the author’s name, address, phone number, and email address in the header of the first page;
  • A brief biography.

Tulsa Law Review Symposium Issue

Matthew L.M. Fletcher

Here:

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Fletcher’s Uncertainty Principle
Matthew L.M. Fletcher

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Tribes as Nations: The Future of the Trust Relationship
Adam Crepelle

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The Unenforceable Indian Trust
Ezra Rosser

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The New Existentialism in Indian Law
M. Alexander Pearl

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Fractionation by Design: Remedy Without Repair in Indigenous-Owned Trust Allotments
Jessica A. Shoemaker

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Tribal Co-Management on Ceded Lands: A New Era?
Michael C. Blumm and Adam Eno

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Original Comic: Tribal-Federal Symbiosis—An Aadioozaan
Matthew L.M. Fletcher

Northwestern Univ. Law School National NALSA Moot Court Call for Judges

Matthew L.M. Fletcher

The National Native American Law Students Association (NNALSA) is excited to announce that its 34th Annual NNALSA Moot Court Competition will be hosted by Northwestern Pritzker School of Law. The Competition will take place on February 13-14, 2026, at Northwestern Law in Chicago, IL. 

NNALSA was founded in 1970 to support law students who are interested in federal Indian law, tribal law, and traditional forms of governance. Each year, NNALSA sponsors a moot court competition for law students who have a passion for Indian law and litigation.

We ask for your support and invite you to be part of this exciting event by contributing as a volunteer judge. Please fill out this link to share your interest and availability. Ahehee’ (Thank you)!

If you have any questions or comments, please email Colin Tompson at mootcourt@nationalnalsa.org. 

2025-2026 American Indian Law Review National Writing Competition

Matthew L.M. Fletcher

Announcing the 2025-2026 American Indian Law Review National Writing Competition

This year’s American Indian Law Review national writing competition is now welcoming papers from students at accredited law schools in the United States and Canada.  Papers will be accepted on any legal issue specifically concerning American Indians or other indigenous peoples.  The winning entry will receive $1,500 and publication by the American Indian Law Review, and will also be awarded an eBook copy of Cohen’s Handbook of Federal Indian Law, provided by LexisNexis

The deadline for entries is Friday, February 27, 2026, at 6 p.m. Eastern Standard Time.

Sponsored by the University of Oklahoma College of Law, the American Indian Law Review has proudly served Native and legal communities since 1973.  Each year at this time we encourage law students nationwide to participate in this, the longest-running competition of its kind.  Papers will be judged by a panel of Indian law scholars and by the editors of the Review.

For further information on eligibility, entry requirements, and judging criteria, see the attached PDF rules sheet or the AILR writing competition website at https://law.ou.edu/ailr/wc.

Rules Sheet 2025-26 – final.pdfDownload

Stanford Law Review Symposium: Promises of Sovereignty

Matthew L.M. Fletcher

Here:

Mantle
Symposium – 2025 – Promises of Sovereignty Tribal Sovereignty, Justice Gorsuch, and the Letter of the Law by  Desmond Mantle  on  July 23, 2025 I meant what I said, and I said what I meant. An elephant’s faithful, one hundred percent!  —Dr. Seuss, Horton Hatches the Egg Introduction This Comment seeks to defend Justice Neil Gorsuch’s approach to statutory interpretation, arguing against pragmatist efforts to reduce the Supreme Court’s reliance on textualism and against efforts by fellow self-proclaimed textualists…Volume 77 (2024-2025)
Kinsbury
Symposium – 2025 – Promises of Sovereignty What We Talk About When We Talk About (Indian) Sovereignty: Montana and the Application of General Statutes to Tribes by  Annelisa Kingsbury Lee  on  July 23, 2025 Montana v. US is a case about tribal civil jurisdiction. Yet it has had a second life in a surprising context: federal statutes of general applicability that do not mention tribes. This Comment explores the circuit split on these silent statutes and shows that Montana is the doctrinal lynchpin for every court that has considered…Volume 77 (2024-2025)
Cui
Symposium – 2025 – Promises of Sovereignty Separation-of-Powers Formalism and Federal Indian Law: The Question of Executive Order Reservations by  Isaac Cui  on  July 23, 2025 Introduction The creation of Indian reservations largely coincided with and was facilitated by the development of presidential authority to withdraw public lands for Indian purposes. Of the roughly 42.8 million acres of total tribal trust lands in 1951, slightly over 23 million were set aside through executive order. That number far dwarfs any other method…Volume 77 (2024-2025)
Schilfgaarde
Symposium – 2025 – Promises of Sovereignty Tribal Revestiture by  Lauren van Schilfgaarde  on  July 23, 2025 I. Implicit Divestiture Presumes Cultural Incompatibility Tribes have a precarious political posture in relation to the United States. Tribes are distinctly sovereign and extra-constitutional, but are also without meaningful external infrastructure to define and protect their legal status in relation to the United States. That is, the U.S. recognizes Tribes as “domestic dependent nations,” but…Volume 77 (2024-2025)
Riley
Symposium – 2025 – Promises of Sovereignty Indigenous Rights to Culture: What’s Next? by  Angela R. Riley  on  July 23, 2025 Introduction For more than two centuries, the United States has maintained—in law and in practice—a colonial system designed to destroy Indigenous peoples’ culture. My work has explored this phenomenon from a property lens, explaining how attacks on Indigenous cultures traverse and encompass all categories of property, including real, tangible, and intangible. From a property perspective,…Volume 77 (2024-2025)
Mills
Symposium – 2025 – Promises of Sovereignty The Supreme Court’s Old Habits in a New Era? Native Nations, Statehood, and an Indigenous-led Future for Natural Resources by  Monte Mills  on  July 23, 2025 Introduction After rising from the depths of eras in which the United States intended to eliminate Native Nations, tribal sovereignty remains ascendant. With respect to natural resources, the governance of Native Nations has expanded to more fully occupy the legal space reserved in treaties with the United States. Across the country, Native Nations have built…Volume 77 (2024-2025)
Lewerenz
Symposium – 2025 – Promises of Sovereignty Federal Indian Law in a Time of Judicial Self-Aggrandizement by  Dan Lewerenz  on  July 23, 2025 Introduction The Supreme Court is accumulating power. Call it “concentrating power in the court,” a “judicial power grab,” or (as a growing number of scholars are calling it) “judicial aggrandizement” or “judicial self-aggrandizement.” Each of these ideas describes a Supreme Court that is upsetting accepted notions of the separation of powers—accumulating power for itself, often…Volume 77 (2024-2025)
Fletcher
Symposium – 2025 – Promises of Sovereignty Against Judicial Generalists by  Matthew L.M. Fletcher  on  July 23, 2025 There is something irritatingly wrong with Indian law practice at the Supreme Court. Oral argument at the Supreme Court is a bitterly unpleasant affair for Indigenous people and tribal advocates for a lengthy variety of reasons. It is canonical that tribal advocates must attempt to avoid Supreme Court review; the strategic thinking is that the…Volume 77 (2024-2025)
Davis
Symposium – 2025 – Promises of Sovereignty Can the Roberts Court Find Federal Indian Law? by  Seth Davis  on  July 23, 2025 Introduction Imagine the lost world of “lawfinding.” In that world, there was a general common law for federal judges to find. And in that world, each statute had a “single, best meaning” for judges to unearth with the traditional tools of statutory interpretation. Of course, we are not going back to that world. Too much…Volume 77 (2024-2025)

UCLA Law Review Symposium Issue — Red Rising: The Shifting Legal Landscape of Tribal Sovereignty

Matthew L.M. Fletcher

Here:

American Indian Law Journal, Vol. 13, Issue 2

Matthew L.M. Fletcher

Here:

Current Issue: Volume 13, Issue 2 (2025)

Articles

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Development and Practice of Tribal Community Planning: Ensuring Indigeneity in the Planning Process
Jared E. Munster, Ph.D.

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The Onondaga Nation’s Land Claim: Rights Without a Remedy?
Larissa Speak

Note

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Case Law on American Indians: September 2023 – August 2024
Thomas P. Schlosser

Manuel Lewis (UMLS) on Tribal Sovereignty and the Decline of the Administrative State

Matthew L.M. Fletcher

Manuel Lewis has posted “The Decline of the Administrative State and its Potential Effects on Tribal Sovereignty” on the Michigan Journal of Environmental and Administrative Law’s blog.

An excerpt:

The federal government of the United States, including federal agencies, owes a trust responsibility to Tribes. The contemporary federal administrative state has given greater authority over agency decisions to the federal judiciary while simultaneously reducing government funding for various agencies’ operations. As a result, it is unclear that the federal government will continue to adhere to its trust responsibility in agency actions. Failure to account for Tribal governments in the current administrative state is a violation of the United States’ duty to Tribes and calls for greater advocacy to ensure the protection of Tribal interests—both in federal agencies and in federal courts.

This bullshit AI art is no reflection on Manny’s great work. (Look at those cheeks!)