tribal membership – Page 4

This relief sought by the Appellants clearly operates against the Tribe. The
requested relief would prevent the Tribe from disenrolling the Appellants and
compel it to reinstate their membership and tribal benefits. Even the request for
compensatory and punitive damages (to be paid by the Appellees, not the Tribe)
would interfere with the Tribe’s public administration, because the monetary
damages are predicated on this court’s determination that the disenrollment of the Appellants was improper. Thus, we conclude that Appellants’ suit should be
construed as a suit against the Tribe itself.

Briefs and lower court materials here.

Federal Court Challenge to Santa Ynez Band of Chumash Indians Membership Decisions Dismissed

January 19, 2015Matthew L.M. Fletcher

Here are the materials in Miranda v. Jewell (C.D. Cal.):

20 Miranda Motion for Summary J

25 Interior Cross-Motion

32 Miranda Reply

33 Interior Reply

37 DCT Order

An excerpt:

In the absence of a clear directive in the SYB Articles that blood degree of prospective members should be determined based only on the blood degree of an ancestor as listed on the 1940 Census, the Court declines to second guess the Bureau’s reasonable decision to apply SYB law in the same manner in which the Tribe applied it.

Federal Court Rejects Challenge to Federal Decision in Pala Disenrollment Dispute

November 21, 2014Matthew L.M. Fletcher2 Comments

Here are the materials in Aguayo v. Jewell (S.D. Cal.):

54-1 Aguayo Motion for Summary J

57-1 Federal Cross Motion for Summary J

59 Aguayo Reply

60 Federal Reply

Aguayo v. Jewell Judgement in Civil Case.11.18.14 (1)

Aguayo v. Jewell.Order Dismissing.11.18.14

Prior post in this proceeding here. Related posts here and here.

Nooksack Disenrollees Get Discovery in Suit against Interior Department

June 19, 2014Matthew L.M. Fletcher2 Comments

Here are the updated materials in St. Germain v. Dept. of Interior (W.D. Wash.):

29 – Defendants’ Motion for Order Determining Applicable Standard of Judicial Review

30 – Response Re Motion for Order Determining Applicable Standard of Review

31 – Defendants’ Reply re Motion for Order Determining Applicable Standard of Judicial Review

32 – Declaration of Judith R Joseph

33 – Order

Prior materials in this federal case here.

New Scholarship on Tribal Membership and Race by Sarah Krakoff

April 7, 2014April 5, 2014Matthew L.M. Fletcher

Sarah Krakoff posted “Constitutional Concern, Membership, and Race” on SSRN. It is forthcoming in the Florida International Law Review.

The abstract:

American Indian Tribes in the United States have a unique legal and political status shaped by fluctuating federal policies and the over-arching history of this country’s brand of settler-colonialism. One of the several legacies of this history is that federally recognized tribes have membership rules that diverge significantly from typical state or national citizenship criteria. These rules and their history are poorly understood by judges and members of the public, leading to misunderstandings about the “racial” status of tribes and Indian people, and on occasion to incoherent and damaging decisions on a range of Indian law issues. This article, which is part of a larger project on tribes, sovereignty, and race, will discuss the history of Florida’s tribes, their road from pre-contact independent peoples to federally recognized tribes, and their contemporary membership criteria in order to shed light on the inextricably political nature of race, membership and sovereignty in the American Indian context.