Whether Eleventh Amendment sovereign immunity and tribal sovereign immunity deprived the lower courts of subject-matter jurisdiction over the Snoqualmie Indian Tribe’s claim, requiring dismissal on that ground under United States Supreme Court precedent including Steel Co. v. Citizens for a Better Environment, 523 U.S. 83 (1996).
Whether, under United States Supreme Court precedent including Ruhrgas AG v. Marathon Oil Co., 526 U.S. 574 (1999) and Sinochem Int’l Co. v. Malaysia Intern. Shipping Corp., 549 U.S. 422 (2007), an issue preclusion dismissal is a merits dismissal and excluded from the threshold grounds among which a federal court may choose to dismiss a case before establishing its subject-matter jurisdiction.
Whether, under United States Supreme Court precedent including Sinochem Int’l Co. v. Malaysia Intern. Shipping Corp., 549 U.S. 422 (2007), jurisdictional issues in this case were not “arduous” or “difficult to determine” because the lower courts could readily determine that they lacked jurisdiction, such that those courts committed reversible error in bypassing determination of their subject-matter jurisdiction and proceeding to dismiss the case instead with prejudice on issue preclusion grounds.
The disparate impact COVID-19 has had on Indian Country reveals problems centuries in the making from the legacy of colonialism. One of those problems is state encroachment in Indian Country, including attempts to assert taxing authority within Indian Country. The issue of the reaches of state taxing authority in Indian Country has resulted in law that is both uncertain and highly complex, chilling both outside investment and economic development for tribes. As the United States emerges from COVID-19, to focus only on the toll exacted on tribes and their peoples ignores the tremendous opportunities for states to right these historical wrongs. Buoyed by federal COVID-relief funds, state and local governments are in a financial position to reframe their tax policies to promote tribal sovereignty and support economic development in Indian Country. This article argues for states to make diplomatic, responsible state and local tax policies that will create healthier intergovernmental relationships and an environment that in turn creates broader economic growth for tribes and states alike. Through policies requiring state governments to consult with tribes to make joint decisions on tax policy and by refraining from exercising taxing authority in Indian Country, states can move from a zero-sum game. Instead of competing for precious tax revenue, state and local governments can partner with tribes to expand the total amount of available revenue streams. Doing so will not just right the historical wrongs of colonialism—it could also help prevent future crises, such as the COVID-19 pandemic, from having such a disparate impact on tribes again.
DSS and the guardian ad litem for Carrie (GAL) disagree, arguing that respondent conflates the existence of or possibility of a distant relation with an Indian with reason to know that a child is an Indian child.
States and courts are really struggling with how much information from a parent gives the court reason to know there is an Indian child in the case–I think this is especially since the regulations now make clear that if you do have reason to know, you must treat the child as an Indian child until demonstrated otherwise. At the same time, there is real issue with lack of nuance on this issue–when a trial court takes the facts from a case like In re Z.J.G. and treats them the exact same way as the facts in this case, which is essentially what happened, then states really have to go send notice for both, which is what the WA Supreme Court held. You don’t do the reverse, which is what the North Carolina Supreme Court has done in this case.
Now, I got an email from California recently and there is a lot of discussion there about the state’s laws there distinguishing between “reason to believe” and “reason to know.” There are a LOT of bumps with implementation, but they are essentially requiring a level, or duty, of inquiry and further inquiry from their state workers to ensure they aren’t missing ICWA cases.
Canadian and U.S. Perspectives on PFAS: Issues of Social Justice
Co-hosted by: The Center of PFAS Research, Canada Connect, and Indigenous Law & Policy Center
Join us for a speaker series on the history, science, impact, and challenges of PFAS in the Canadian and US context. Using a One Health framework, each webinar will include speakers from both Canada and the United States.
Dr. Amira Akar is a Postdoctoral Fellow at the Universite Laval and the Center de reserche du CHU de Quebec. She is an environmental epidemiologist and her research centers around protecting systemically and structurally excluded populations from contaminants of emerging concern, with a particular interest in Arctic communities. Dr. Aker received her PhD in Environmental Health Sciences from the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, and completed a postdoctoral fellowship a the University of Toronto Scarborough focused on chronic disease.
Melanie Lemire is an associate professor in the Department of Social and Preventative Medicine at Laval Unviersity and researcher at the Population Health and Optimal Health Practices axis at the CHU du Quebec-Universite Laval Research Centre and the Institute for Integrative and Systems Biology (IBIS). She is the Canadian designated expert for the Human Health Assessment Group of the Arctic Monitoring an Assessment Program (HHAG-AMAP). Her projects are transdisciplinary, intersectoral and participatory, and focus on the study of environmental contaminants, ocean change, and nutrition related to the health of Indigenous and coastal populations. Her findings are used to inform decisions, decision making-tools, programs and policies at local, federal, and international levels.
Elyse Caron-Beaudoin is an Assistant Professor in environmental health at the University of Toronto – Scarborough. Her research focuses on the development of transdisciplinary community-based research projects to assess the impacts of anthropogenic pressures on health by combining information form multiple levels of biological organization. Elyse holds a PhD in biology with a specialization in toxicology from the INRS – Armand-Frappier Institute in Laval, Quebec. From 2018 to 2020, she was a CIHR-funded postdoctoral fellow at the Universite de Montreal. She is implicated in several research projects on environmentalism and Indigenous health, including in oil and gas regions and in the Canadian Arctic.
Whitney Gravelle is a citizen of the Bay Mills Indian Community Gnoozhekaaning (Place of the Pike) in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. After graduating from Michigan State University College of Law in 2016 with a certificate from the Indigenous Law Program, Whitney worked for the Department of Justice with the Environmental and Natural Resource Division in the Indian Resource Section, where she worked on cases relate to the scope of tribal lands and jurisdiction, treaty rights, and the protection of lands held in trust for tribes and individual Indian lands. Currently, Whitney serves as President of the Bay Mills Indian Community, and serves on the Michigan Women’s Commission and the Michigan Advisory Council on Environmental Justice.
Wenona Singel is an Associate Professor of Law and Associate Director of the Indigenous Law & Policy Center at Michigan State University College of Law in East Lansing, Michigan. She recently completed a two-year leave of absence from MSU to fulfill an appointment as Deputy Legal Counsel and Advisor for Tribal Affairs for Governor Gretchen Whitmer. At MSU, Wenona teaches and publishes in the areas of Property, Federal Indian Law, and Natural Resources Law. She is a member of the American Law Institute and an Associate Reporter for the Restatement of the Law of American Indians. She also received an appointment by President Barack Obama to the Board of Saint Lawrence Seaway Development Corporation, a position she held for five years. She received an A.B. from Harvard College and a J.D. from Harvard Law School. Wenona is a citizen of the Little Traverse Bay Bands of Odawa Indians.
Join us for our next PFAS webinar: March 15th 12:00-1:30pm
Turtle Talk 
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