Turtle Talk

Friday Job Announcements

June 30, 2017June 30, 2017Sarah M Donnelly

Job vacancies are posted on Friday. Some announcements might still appear throughout the week. If you would like your Indian law job posted on Turtle Talk, please email indigenous@law.msu.edu.

Native American Rights Fund

Summer Clerks. Positions are available in all three of NARF’s offices. Must have completed 2L year by Summer 2018. Application deadline is September 29, 2017.

Navajo Nation Department of Justice

Attorney, Litigation and Employment Unit. The qualified applicant will focus on litigation for the Navajo Nation government before federal, Navajo Nation, and state courts and administrative tribunals in a variety of subject areas, including natural resources, public safety, and jurisdictional issues, with some work with Navajo Nation government programs advising and representing programs on labor and employment matters.

Previous Friday Jobs Announcement: 6/23/17

Australia Through American Eyes

June 30, 2017Ann Tweedy

An American reporter’s observations about racism against indigenous people in Australia. Here.

Federal Court Allows Discovery of Nooksack Tribal Court Judge

June 30, 2017Matthew L.M. Fletcher

Here are the materials from Rabang v. Kelly (W.D. Wash.):

75 Plaintiffs’ Motion to Deny or Continue Defendant Dodge’s Motion for Summary Judgment

82 Defendant Chief Judge Raymond Dodge’s Opposition to Rule 56(D) Motion

84 Plaintiffs’ Reply in Support of Motion to Deny or Continue Dodge’s Motion for Summary Judgment

85 Order Granting Plaintiffs’ Motion to Continue

Eighth Circuit Affirms Major Crimes Act DV/Sexual Assault Conviction

June 29, 2017June 29, 2017Matthew L.M. Fletcher

Here is the opinion in United States v. Johnson.

ICRA Habeas Petition Dismissed for Failure to Exhaust Tribal Remedies

June 29, 2017Matthew L.M. Fletcher1 Comment

Here are the materials in Adams v. Elwell (D.N.M.):

1 Habeas Petition

8 DCT Order

California COA Affirms $49M Judgment in Inter-Tribal Contract Dispute

June 29, 2017February 17, 2021Matthew L.M. Fletcher

Here is the opinion in Yavapai-Apache Nation v. La Posta Band of Diegueno Mission Indians:

Yavapai-Apache Nation v La Posta Band

Briefs:

Yavapai-Apache Nation Reply Brief

La Posta Opening Brief

Yavapai-Apache Nation Response Brief

La Posta Reply Brief

An excerpt:

This appeal arises from a contract dispute between two Indian tribes: Yavapai Apache Nation (YAN) and La Posta Band of Diegueno Mission Indians (La Posta). YAN is an Arizona-based tribe with about 2,400 members, and La Posta is a California based tribe with about 15 adult members. In the parties’ contract, La Posta promised to repay more than $23 million to YAN for funds borrowed to develop a casino that later proved unsuccessful. The parties waived sovereign immunity in their contract.

***

In the final judgment, the superior court awarded YAN $48,893,407.97 on its contract claim, and entered judgment against La Posta on its declaratory relief claim based on the court’s finding this claim was not ripe. Both parties filed appeals from this judgment. For the reasons explained, we find no reversible error and affirm the judgment in its entirety.

Remarks by President Trump and Secretary of Energy Rick Perry at White House Tribal, State, and Local Energy Roundtable

June 29, 2017June 29, 2017bryannewland1 Comment

Written remarks available here.

Video and photos here.

Tribes represented at the roundtable include: the Crow Nation, Chickasaw Nation, Ute Tribe (U&O Reservation), Southern Ute, Navajo Nation, Hopi, Three Affiliated Tribes of Ft. Berthold, and the Sault Ste. Marie Tribe of Chippewa Indians (among others)

From the President’s Remarks:

I’m proud to have such a large gathering of tribal leaders here at the White House. I look forward to more government-to-government consultations with tribal leaders about the issues important to Indian Country. We love Indian Country, right?

Many of your lands have rich, natural resources that stand to benefit your people immensely. These untapped resources of wealth can help you build new schools, fix roads, improve your communities, and create jobs — jobs like you’ve never seen before. All you want is the freedom to use them, and that’s been the problem. It’s been very difficult, hasn’t it? It will be a lot easier now under the Trump administration.

For too long the federal government has put up restrictions and regulations that put this energy wealth out of reach. It’s just totally out of reach. It’s been really restricted, the development itself has been restricted, and vast amounts of deposits of coal and other resources have, in a way, been taken out of your hands. And we’re going to have that changed. We’re going to put it back in your hands.

These infringements on tribal sovereignty are deeply unfair to Native Americans and Native American communities who are being denied access to the energy and wealth that they have on their own lands. Many of our states have also been denied access to the abundant energy resources on their lands that could bring greater wealth to the people and benefit to our whole nation. We’re becoming more and more energy dominant. I don’t want to be energy free, we want to be energy dominant in terms of the world.

Fort Peck Tribe Files Education Discrimination Complaint against Wolf Point District Schools

June 29, 2017June 29, 2017Matthew L.M. Fletcher

Here is the complaint.

An excerpt:

The Wolf Point School District discriminates against Native students and deprives them of basic rights to which they are entitled in school. The Assiniboine and Sioux Tribes, whose reservation encompasses the Wolf Point school district, asks that the U.S. Department of Justice and U.S. Department of Education intervene. The unequal treatment of Native students is detrimental to their development and education and violates federal law.

White residents on the Fort Peck Indian Reservation, which is majority-Native, control local politics, business, and schools. Gerrymandering and nepotism have perpetuated racial inequality created by federal policies, including preferential land grants for white homesteaders and compulsory boarding school programs for Native students. Schools on the Reservation bear the legacy of the Fort Peck Reservation Boarding School, which violently imposed Western culture, values, and education on Native families through the early 1900s.

Hostility towards Native students and culture persists. Native students in Wolf Point report the use of racial slurs and harmful stereotypes by white administrators, faculty, and staff. Native students are disproportionately disciplined and excluded from school, often without due process. At Wolf Point High School, non-white students, most of whom are Native, are more than twice as likely to receive in- and out-of-school suspensions than white students. These suspensions also violate federal and local standards for discipline. Native students are routinely denied academic and extracurricular opportunities available to white students. Students with academic and behavioral challenges, most of whom are Native, are warehoused in the Opportunity
Learning Center, which is understaffed and underfunded.

Split Ninth Circuit Panel Finds Colorable Navajo Labor Commission Jurisdiction over Window Rock School District

June 28, 2017Matthew L.M. Fletcher2 Comments

Here is the opinion in Window Rock School District v. Nez.

An excerpt from the court’s syllabus:

The panel held that it was “colorable or plausible” that the tribal adjudicative forum, the Navajo Nation Labor Commission, had jurisdiction because the claims arose from conduct on tribal land over which the Navajo Nation had the right to exclude nonmembers, and the claims implicated no state criminal law enforcement interests. Well-established exhaustion principles therefore required that the tribal forum have the first opportunity to evaluate its own jurisdiction, including the nature of the state and tribal interests involved.

Briefs and lower court materials here.

Tiger Swan Tactics

June 28, 2017Teresa Walrod

In a four-part series, The Intercept examines the blurred lines between private security and public law enforcement, and the impact of corporate money on the increasing opposition to oil pipelines.