Turtle Talk

Singel to Discuss Brackeen in 2022-2023 ACS National Supreme Court Review

July 10, 2023Singel

Please join the American Constitution Society tomorrow, July 11, 2023, from 2:30 – 4:00 pm EDT for the National Supreme Court Review, which examines the most consequential cases of the 2022-2023 Term. Prof. Wenona Singel will offer commentary on Haaland v. Brackeen and discuss the decisions of this Term and their long-term effects on law and policy.

Welcome Remarks

Russ Feingold, President, American Constitution Society

Featuring

Chris Geidner, Publisher and Author, Law Dork, moderator

Debo Adegbile, Partner and Chair of the Anti-Discrimination Practice, WilmerHale

Ruben Garcia, Professor of Law and Co-Director of the Workplace Law Program, University of Nevada, Las Vega William S. Boyd School of Law

Kelly Moser, Senior Attorney and Leader of the Clean Water Program, Southern Environmental Law Center

Wenona Singel, Associate Professor of Law, Michigan State University College of Law and Director, Indigenous Law & Policy Center

Stephen I. Vladeck, Charles Alan Wright Chair in Federal Courts, The University of Texas at Austin School of Law

The American Constitution Society is a State Bar of California approved provider. This event has been approved for 1.5 hour of California MCLE credit.

As the nation’s leading progressive legal organization, ACS is committed to ensuring that all aspects of our events are accessible and enjoyable for all. If you require any accommodations, please contact us at info@acslaw.org.

The registration link is available here.

Fletcher Draft Paper: “Federal Indian Law as Method”

July 10, 2023Matthew L.M. Fletcher

Please check out “Federal Indian Law as Method,” likely forthcoming in the University of Colorado Law Review. Here is the abstract:

This Essay is written in the shadow of a series of noxious attacks on core principles of federal Indian law, most notoriously Haaland v. Brackeen, a challenge to the constitutionality of the Indian Child Welfare Act (ICWA). The Supreme Court did not reach the merits of the equal protection challenges, but during oral argument, several judges expressed skepticism that Congressional Indian affairs enactments that grant privileges or preferences to Indian people could survive scrutiny under an equal protection analysis. Justice Kavanaugh, one of the judges most interested in the equal protection claims, wrote separately to highlight these issues, asserting that “the equal protection issue is serious.”
The parties siding with ICWA’s constitutionality argued to the Court that the Mancari case is a guide, whereas the opponents to ICWA’s constitutionality wanted to Court to ignore the case altogether. This Essay is a full-throated defense of the Mancari as a method of constitutional interpretation. Not only is the Mancari method correct, it is also the only justifiable method. This Essay proceeds with a short background on federal Indian law and its default interpretative rules. Next, the Essay surveys the application of and challenges to the Mancari method. Finally, the Essay concludes with a comparison of the methods proposed to replace or displace the Mancari method.
This Essay was prepared for the 31st Annual Rothgerber Symposium at Colorado Law School.

Fort on Defending ICWA, 2013-2023

July 10, 2023Kate Fort

Article-5_Fort

This Article lays out the history of the fight over ICWA from Baby Girl to Haaland, from my perspective as a clinical professor who has been involved with every major ICWA case since 2013, as well as my observations about why ICWA was so vulnerable to an organized litigation attack despite continued bipartisan and widespread support of the law.