Here is the complaint in Cavazos v. Zinke (D.D.C.):
The plaintiffs are represented by Gerald Torres, Michael Sliger, and Hope Babcock.
News coverage: “Expelled Tribe Members Say Feds Did Nothing to Protect Their Rights”
Update:
trust relationship
Lummi Tribe v. United States Cert Petition [HUD Funding]
Here is the petition:
Questions presented:
Does 28 U.S.C. § 1491 grant the court of federal claims jurisdiction over an action to recover grant-in-aid funds unlawfully recouped by the United States or is the action one for specific relief which must be brought under the Administrative Procedure Act, 5 U.S.C. § 702?
Does the court of federal claims have jurisdiction to enter a judgment on an illegal exaction claim when the United States had previously awarded money to a recipient under a grant-in-aid statute and then unlawfully recouped the funds?
Where a grant-in-aid statute mandates that the United States pay grant funds to a plaintiff, does the court of federal claims have jurisdiction to enter a money judgment for the failure to pay the grant funds even if there are conditions on the use of the grant funds after they are awarded?
Lower court materials here.
UPDATE:
Bristol Bay Area Health Waiver Request from USAC Funding Cap (FCC)
Seminole Tribe v. Azar Complaint
Here:
Fletcher Review of David Grann’s “Killers of the Flower Moon”
Here is “Failed Protectors: The Indian Trust and Killers of the Flower Moon,” forthcoming in the Michigan Law Review.
Abstract:
This Review uses Killers of the Flower Moon as a jumping off point for highlighting for readers how so many Indian people in Indian country can be so easily victimized by criminals. And yet, for however horrible the Osage Reign of Terror, the reality for too many Indian people today is much much worse. The federal government is absolutely to blame for these conditions. This Review shows how policy choices made by all three branches of the federal government have failed Indian people. Part I establishes the federal-tribal trust relationship that originated with a duty of protection. Part II establishes how the United States failure to fulfill its duties to the Osage Nation and its citizens allowed and even indirectly encouraged the Osage Reign of Terror. Part III offers thoughts on the future of the trust relationship in light of the rise of tribal self-determination. Part IV concludes the Review with a warning about how modern crime rates against Indian women and children are outrageously high in large part because of the continuing failures of the United States.
Indian Students’ Claims against BIE School at Havasupai Survive Motion to Dismiss
Here are the materials in Stephen C. v. Bureau of Indian Education (D. Ariz.):
78 Havasupai Tribe Amicus Brief
82 Society of Indian Psychologists Amicus Brief
Complaint here.
News Profile of Ute Tribe Reservation Suit against US
Here is “Ute Tribe takes U.S. government to court over ‘theft’ of land and water in historic Uncompahgre.”
Link to complaint here.
National Mining Assn v. Zinke Cert Petition [Grand Canyon Uranium Mining]
Here:
Question presented:
Can Congress’s delegation to the Department of the Interior of withdrawal authority over large tracts of land survive without the legislative veto right that Congress included as a check on the exercise of that authority?
Lower court materials here.
Update:
Ute Indian Tribe Sues US for Breach of Trust
Here is the complaint in Ute Indian Tribe v. United States (D.D.C.):
Sarah Krakoff on Bears Ears
Sarah Krakoff has posted “Public Lands, Conservation, and the Possibility of Justice” on SSRN. The paper is forthcoming in the Harvard Civil Rights-Civil Liberties Law Review.
Here is the abstract:
On December 28, 2016, President Obama issued a proclamation designating the Bears Ears National Monument pursuant to his authority under the Antiquities Act of 1906, which allows the President to create monuments on federal public lands. Bears Ears, which is located in the heart of Utah’s dramatic red rock country, contains a surfeit of ancient Puebloan cliff-dwellings, petroglyphs, pictographs, and archeological artifacts. The area is also famous for its paleontological finds and its desert biodiversity. Like other national monuments, Bears Ears therefore readily meets the statutory objective of preserving “historic and prehistoric structures, and other objects of historic or scientific interest.” Unlike every other monument since the passage of the Antiquities Act, however, Bears Ears was proposed by a coalition of American Indian Tribes. The Bears Ears Inter-Tribal Coalition, which submitted the proposal to protect Bears Ears, included representatives from the Hopi Tribe, Navajo Nation, Ute Mountain Ute, Uintah and Ouray Ute, and Zuni tribal governments.
Historically, the Antiquities Act and other federal conservation laws played very different roles in the lives of Native people. Conservation laws divested Tribes of their lands and cultural heritage in the name of preserving these resources for others. Moreover, federal laws and policies designed to destroy tribal political structures were at their apex during the same period that early conservation policy was formed. Together, and complemented by laws that privatized vast swathes of the federal public domain, conservation law and federal Indian law effected a joint project of Indian elimination. This Article explores that dark side of conservation history, and describes the very different process that led to the Bears Ears designation. It argues that by restoring tribal connections to the landscape, Bears Ears National Monument serves as a partial act of reparations.
Today, Bears Ears National Monument is under threat. President Trump reduced the Monument to a small fraction of its size and divided it into two parcels. The Tribes, along with conservation groups, have sued, arguing that the Antiquities Act authorizes the President only to create monuments, not to eliminate or shrink them unilaterally. As that legal battle plays out, the story of Bears Ears remains worth telling. Its saga explores the intertwined histories of the development of racial attitudes and environmental thought, and fills in an important chapter in the larger story of Indian appropriation. The inter-tribal effort to establish Bears Ears will leave its mark on public lands and conservation law, regardless of the ebbs and flows of current legal disputes.
Turtle Talk 
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