Irish MPs Urge Obama to Revoke Wounded Knee Medals

23 members of the Irish Parliament sent a recent letter to President Barack Obama urging him to revoke the 20 Medal of Honor awards given to the soldiers who perpetrated the Massacre at Wounded Knee in 1890. They argue that the medals are a standing insult to the Lakota, and all Native Americans.

The Lakota People’s Law Project steadfastly sides with the members of the Irish parliament in recognizing these honors not only represent a stain on United States history but taint the very prestige of the Medal of Honor itself.

How did the Irish become involved in matters specific to Native Americans? The little-known shared history between the two sovereign nations holds several examples of fraternity and mutual understanding.

During the Irish potato famine of 1845-49, when thousands of Irish were starving as potato crops failed, the Emerald Isle received an unexpected gift from a group of sympathetic people across the Atlantic: the Choctaw Nation.

At the peak of the famine In 1847, the Choctaws of Oklahoma heard about the terrible conditions faced by the Irish, and gathered together to see what they could do to help. The result was a donation of $170, what would today be $5,000, gathered from tribal members and sent to Ireland to relieve their suffering.

This act of charity is especially significant when viewed in historical context. Just sixteen years earlier, the entire Choctaw Nation had been pushed from their homes in the Southeast and forced to march 500 miles to Oklahoma on the Trail of Tears. Thousands died of hunger, disease and exposure along this bitter journey, only to arrive in an unfamiliar and unwelcoming land. Despite the immense challenges faced by their people, the Choctaw still managed to extend support to the Irish in the hour of need.

The generosity of the Choctaw during that difficult time left a lasting impression on the Irish, one that has resulted in a 1995 visit from Irish president Mary Robinson to the Choctaw Nation in Oklahoma, a commemorative plaque at the Lord Mayor’s mansion in Dublin, and now the unveiling of a beautiful statue in Cork, Ireland, by Irish sculptor Alex Pentek. The installation dubbed “Kindred Spirits” consists of nine massive steel feathers fashioned in the style of Choctaw ceremonial dress and arranged into a bowl, symbolizing the Choctaw appreciation of Irish suffering.

Irish appreciation for the generous gift from a Native American community has also been expressed in other ways. In 1992, a group of Irish nationals walked from Broken Bow, Oklahoma, to Nanih Waiya, Mississippi, paying homage to the many Choctaws who lost their lives on this route. Then last year, 23 Senators across the political spectrum in Ireland signed the letter urging President Barack Obama to revoke the Medal of Honor awards given to soldiers who perpetrated the Massacre at Wounded Knee in 1890. The kindness shown by the Choctaw in 1847 earned them the lasting respect and appreciation of a foreign Nation well over a century later.

Mainstream culture mistakenly views Native Americans as an isolated population, quarantined in the lonely, windswept regions of America’s heartland. This oversimplified view ignores the contribution of thousands of Native veterans who gave their lives for the United States in foreign wars, as well as the many Native activists who have won greater recognition for Indigenous people worldwide through their work with the UN.

It also ignores the small but powerful donation from the Choctaw Nation in 1847, who reached out to give what they could to help a group of people they had never met, because they understood the importance of community and shared humanity in the face of abject suffering.

Adoption Attorneys Defeated in attempt to revoke ICWA

 

 

Native American families experienced a major legal victory this week, as a federal court judge threw out a case that attempted to argue ICWA violated the civil rights of Indian parents. United States District Judge Gerald Bruce Lee dismissed the lawsuit, initially filed by the National Council For Adoption Attorneys, which sought to decimate the Department of Justice’s recent release of stronger ICWA guidelines.

The tough new federal guidelines were crafted and released in part as a response to South Dakota’s systematic and willful violation of the Indian Child Welfare Act for the better part of two decades. They are intended to create a protocol that keeps Indian children within their family, tribe and culture, whenever possible. The Lakota People’s Law Project hailed the release of the guidelines as a long-overdue step necessary to protect Indian families and their cultural heritage. So why would someone attack guidelines put in place to protect families? Who would bring a lawsuit to federal court demanding that these protections be revoked?

Enter the American Academy of Adoption Attorneys, and their thinly disguised lobbying arm, the National Council For Adoption Attorneys. These groups stand to profit immensely from a repeal of ICWA, as this would allow for vulnerable Native children to be plucked from their families and quickly adopted by non Natives without any oversight or special procedure. Expediting the process of adoption is directly in the financial interest of AAAA, because it means more children will be removed and adopted, and therefore more attorneys will get paid.

Last week, on Dec. 9, their efforts to dismantle Native Families faced a resounding defeat.

Not only did Judge Lee dismiss the case on technical grounds, i.e. lack of court jurisdiction, but he also repudiated the notion that the guidelines are non-binding interpretive rules and are thus not subject to adjudication.

Furthermore, Judge Lee ruled against the plaintiff’s claim that the guidelines commandeered state authority relative to ICWA implementation, violated equal protection, due process or Indian Commerce Clause claims.

“This ruling is nothing short of an utter humiliation of the attorneys of the AAAA who tried to simply manufacture constitutional claims to mask their utter mercenary objectives,” said Attorney Daniel Sheehan, Chief Counsel for Lakota People’s Law Office in South Dakota. “Rarely does one see a legal complaint so decisively crushed by a federal court, especially when the plaintiff is backed by such wealthy sponsors,” Sheehan continued. “To see a case get dismissed without any oral arguments on both technical grounds and the merits demonstrates not only the flimsy nature of the legal grounds cited, but also the clumsiness of the crass legal maneuverings and utter lack of moral clarity on the part of those who were behind this ill-advised legal gambit.”

Oddly enough, the summarily dismissed case is one of a series of virtually identical cases filed across the country that seek to dismantle important provisions of ICWA.

Three additional federal cases filed virtually simultaneously with this Virginia case, in Arizona, Oklahoma and in Minnesota, similarly seek to undermine the federal government’s recently-increased effort to enforce ICWA. All of them were filed by AAAA affiliated attorneys. These cases are still pending

“These attempts by these adoption attorney organizations are simply self-serving,” Sheehan said. “These adoption attorneys sought out poor young Indian mothers who would agree to submit to their extremely esoteric legal maneuverings for one purpose — so they could continue to enrich themselves at the expense of Indian culture, heritage and families.”

In fact, LPLP has uncovered evidence that shows that the National Council for Adoption is nothing more than a front organization for the group of AAAA attorneys seeking to clear the way for their profit-driven motives. On Friday March 27, 2015, in a webinar titled “A Call to Action Regarding the BIA Guidelines”, former AAAA President Laurie Goldheim revealed the organization was planning a multi-pronged attack on the law. She went on to advocate for legal assaults not only on ICWA guidelines, but on the legality of ICWA itself. She also suggested that the group increase lobbying efforts in Washington D.C to force a “political” solution to their problem, essentially meaning they want to attempt to coerce, influence and persuade elected officials to scrap a decades old law protecting vulnerable American Indian families.

“The Indian child adoption industry in America is a lucrative one and, like any industry, it requires a steady flow of raw materials,” said Sheehan. “In this case, in order to keep the profits flowing, these well-heeled adoption attorneys need Indian children to be adopted. And these tough new ICWA guidelines make it harder for these professional vultures, with the help of corrupt state officials, to defy the federal law by stealing Indian children from their families. So, of course, they are going to do everything in their power to combat these new guidelines.”

Fortunately, Judge Lee saw the ulterior motives behind this disgraceful case and dismissed it, but we must remain vigilant as the AAAA steps up its attacks on ICWA, and Native American families.

 

 

 

 

Corporation Defends Sexual Assault, attacks Tribal Authority

On December 7th, the Supreme Court will hear oral arguments and rule whether or not tribal courts have the authority to take legal action against corporations operating on reservations. The case stems from a 2003 civil suit, charging a corporate employee with sexual assault against an Indian child.

The Mississippi band of Choctaw Indians brought this case against the Dollar General Corporation after a store manager at the Choctaw reservation Dollar General, Dale Townshend, molested a thirteen-year-old Indian boy who was interning at the store as part of a Youth Opportunity Program

Congress has already installed legislation that prevents Indian tribal courts from bringing criminal charges against non-Indians accused of crimes on tribal land, and the attorney general of Mississippi declined to file any actions against Townshend or Dollar General in state court. Thus the parents were left with to pursue their case in tribal civil court as a last resort.

Dollar General Corporation, valued at $20 billion, is denying any responsibility for the conduct of their employees on tribal lands. They have lost in tribal court, federal court and the court of appeals, but their attorneys continue to argue that the tribe does not have the authority to police the behavior of non-tribal members, even if those individuals violate the human rights of tribe members.

This is an alarming assault on tribal sovereignty. If the arguments made by Dollar General’s corporate attorneys are followed to their logical conclusion, tribal authorities would have zero recourse to address criminal actions of non-Indians on their land, enabling them to commit crimes with impunity.

The extent of the powers that a tribal government can exercise over non members has been a topic of contention for decades. In Montana v. the United States (1981), the Supreme Court ruled that a, “…tribe may regulate, through taxation, licensing, or other means, the activities of nonmembers who enter consensual relationships with the tribe or its members.”

Furthermore, the case asserted that a tribe can, “exercise civil authority over the conduct of non-Indians on fee lands within its reservation when that conduct threatens or has some direct effect on the political integrity, the economic security, or the health or welfare of the Tribe.”

This clause directly asserts the authority of tribal government to take action when an outside entity engaged in commerce on tribal lands commits a violent crime against a tribe member.

However, in Nevada v Hicks (2001), the Court recognized it has never held that a tribal court had jurisdiction over a “nonmember defendant” in any context.

The result of these conflicting rulings is a strange contradiction over whether or not tribes can actually enforce laws against non tribal members if they commit crimes on on tribal land. This legal purgatory is dangerous, not just for tribal sovereignty, but for the thousands of people who live on Indian reservations.

Dollar General operates under the belief that the safety of Indians on their own lands is secondary to the profits of corporations operating there. This heinous position undermines the authority of Tribal governments nationwide to protect their people from violence and exploitation.

It is imperative that the Supreme Court reject these faulty and unjust arguments brought by Dollar General’s attorneys, and uphold the rulings of lower courts that have elevated the importance of public safety over the corporate bottom line. Let us hope they have the wisdom to rule justly on this case.

 

South Dakota Judge Displays Pattern of Racism

On November 4th, South Dakota’s Supreme Court struck down a standing order that barred all Oglala Lakota County residents from serving on juries. The court found that the 2009 standing order issued by Seventh District Court Judge Jeff Davis unnecessarily violated the civic rights of residents in that county.

“The circuit court’s ruling, effectively prohibiting the entire population of a South Dakota county from participating in their civic right to be a juror, is a structural defect we cannot allow,” declared Chief Justice David Gilbertson in the court’s unanimous ruling.

Oglala Lakota County has roughly 14,000 residents, approximately 96% of whom are Native American. For the past six years, none of them have been allowed to exercise their right to serve on a jury of their peers.

Justice Gilbertson went on to rule that Davis’ standing order to exclude the residents of a county from service far exceeded his authority as a circuit court Judge. Davis also failed to file this motion for approval with the South Dakota Supreme Court, as he was mandated to do.

The actions of Judge Davis are deplorable and fully consistent with his history of arbitrary and racially discriminatory judicial conduct.

In March of 2015, a federal court ruled against Judge Davis in the lawsuit Oglala Sioux Tribe v. Van Hunnik, brought by the ACLU that accused Davis, Pennington County Prosecutor Mark Vargo, State Director of the Department of Social Services (DSS) Lynne Valenti, and Pennington County DSS employee Luann Van Hunnik, of systematically violating the Indian Child Welfare Act of 1978, and due process clause of the 14th amendment of the Untied States Constitution.

Chief Judge Jeffrey L. Viken’s ruling found that, “An alarmingly high percentage of Indian families are broken up by the removal, often unwarranted, of their children from them by non-tribal public and private agencies, and that an alarmingly high percentage of these children are placed in non-Indian foster and adoptive homes and institutions.”

Davis often arranged custody hearings within 48 hours of removing a child from their family, before the parents could arrange adequate legal support. Typically, Davis would consider a case for less than five minutes, before ruling against the parents. Children removed were often kept in foster care for weeks and months before being reunited with their families.

Viken declared that, “Indian children, parents and tribes deserve better”, and ordered the state to: Provide parents with adequate notice prior to emergency removal hearings, allow parents to testify at those hearings and present evidence, appoint attorneys to assist parents in these removal proceedings, allow parents to cross-examine the state’s witnesses in the hearings, and require state courts to base their decisions on evidence presented during these hearings.

The ruling also found the conduct of Davis to be particularly damaging, because his colleagues often followed the policies he set on removing Indian children from their homes.

The recent ruling against Davis and that of Oglala Sioux Tribe v Van Hunnik are not isolated incidents of one disgruntled judge, but are representative of the system of discrimination and exclusion faced by the Lakota people in South Dakota. Both of these cases go beyond Davis, and accuse other judges, prosecutors and state DSS employees of racial bias and misconduct. They come at the same time as a federal lawsuit launched by the Department of Justice, which accuses South Dakota DSS of screening prospective employees by race.

Judge Viken is correct when he declares that American Indians in South Dakota deserve better than the systemic injustices that are currently perpetrated against them, at all levels of South Dakota state government and administration.

Feds Sue South Dakota For Racism

Yesterday the United States Justice Department filed a lawsuit against the South Dakota Department of Social Services for their practice of racially screening prospective employees, validating an argument that the Lakota People’s Law Project has been making for the past decade — the DSS is a racially prejudiced institution that actively and systematically discriminates against Native Americans.

The case centers on Cedric Goodman, a 2010 applicant for an employment specialist position with the DSS at the Pine Ridge office. Goodman has a bachelor’s degree, and had begun working towards a master’s degree at the time of his interview. He also had worked for five years as a social worker, with three and a half in a supervisory position, and already had four years of experience work in this field as an employment specialist for a state run agency. He met all of the preferred qualifications set forth by the DSS.

Goodman watched as the employment opportunity he had applied for vanished from the DSS website, and was stunned to see the position re-opened and filled the next day by a white candidate who had recently graduated college, and had quite limited experience, mostly in retail and office environments. The DOJ official complaint alleges that she was hired despite having, “no work experience that met the employer’s preferred qualifications.” This disparity clearly demonstrates that the DSS chose not to hire Goodman because of their prejudices, not problems with his education, experience or professionalism.

“When employers discriminate against qualified job applicants because of what they look like or where they come from, they violate both the values that shape our nation and the laws that govern it,” said Principal Deputy Assistant Attorney General Vanita Gupta of the Civil Rights Division, who filed the case against the South Dakota DSS.

The Lakota People’s Law Project is excited that the federal government has chosen to seek justice for victims of discrimination in South Dakota, but we are not surprised by the allegations. We began investigating the practices of the DSS in 2005, after a group of Lakota grandmothers claimed the agency was seizing Indian children from their families and placing them in non-Native settings in direct violation of the Indian Child Welfare Act of 1978.

In subsequent years of investigation, LPLP confirmed these accusations, and proved that the DSS was in fact wrongfully removing hundreds of Indian children from their homes on an annual basis, and approximately 90 percent of these children were placed in non-tribal foster care or adoptive settings. We found that while Native American children constitute 13.5 percent of the child population in South Dakota, they comprise 54 percent of the youth foster care population.

This forcible diaspora if Native children is not merely due to the the blatant discriminatory animus present in South Dakota’s state institutions, but is a result of the profitable nature of child removal. A 2011 report by National Public Radio asserted that the South Dakota Department of Social Services received about $65 million per year in federal money for Lakota foster care due to the categorization of all Native American children as special needs.

“The state of South Dakota operates under a perverse financial incentive, as they figured out they could prey on the politically and economically marginalized people relegated to reservations and enrich their state coffers in the process,” said Bryan Brewer, former president of the Pine Ridge Reservation. “This is not only a large affront to our people, who have been mistreated and brutalized by an indifferent system for centuries, but it is an outright betrayal of the public trust and a despicable display of venality and corruption by South Dakota’s highest officials.”

The decision of South Dakota DSS officials to systematically violate the rights of Native families to receive increased federal funding is consistent with their actions to discriminate against prospective Native employees. Now they are finally facing justice.

This latest lawsuit is the second of two major civil rights-related lawsuits to be brought against South Dakota, and involving the DSS, in 2015. The first was filed by the American Civil Liberties Union in federal court and was ruled in favor of the plaintiff in March.

The court ruled that South Dakota Judge Jeff Davis and his associates, many of whom worked with the DSS, violated the rights of multiple Indian families by willfully and systematically ignoring the dictates of Indian Child Welfare Act. Furthermore, it rules the entire court system, including lawyers and other officials, routinely violated the 14th amendment of the Constitution.

These two lawsuits claiming invidious discriminatory animus toward Native Americans by South Dakota comes amid other incidents, including a white man escaping prosecution after he dumped beer on and hurled racial epithets at young Lakota children at a hockey game in Rapid City. It comes amid questionable killings of Indians by police and revelations that Native Americans comprise disproportionate jail populations in South Dakota and throughout the nation’s prison system.

“The Lakota People’s Law Project has exhorted the DOJ to investigate and sue the state of South Dakota for rampant and widespread racial discrimination against Indians for several years, so this undoubtedly represents a major victory for our cause,” said Lakota People’s Law Project Attorney Chase Iron Eyes. “How long will America ignore what is happening in South Dakota? How long will the United States tolerate the most egregious case of racism as it festers in the heart of the country? While these lawsuits are heartening and certainly help the cause, they are poor proxies in confronting comprehensive and widespread discrimination against Indians. We need firmer moral pressure on the oppressors who run this state before we can begin to reconcile and arrive at real substantive solutions.”

Proposed Bill Assaults Tribal Sovereignty

Republican Representatives are attempting to undermine tribal sovereignty yet again, this time attempting to pass legislation that would render it more difficult for tribes to obtain recognized federal status.

On October 20th, Republican Representative Rob Bishop introduced H.R.3764 or the “Tribal Recognition Act of 2015”. This bill is intended to remove the Bureau of Indian Affairs authority to recognize American Indian tribes, and give those rights exclusively Congress instead

The Lakota People’s Law Project questions the motives for Bishop’s desire to strip the BIA’s power, asserting that terminating this power could undermine tribal sovereignty, attempt to blot out their individual cultures through assimilation and seize natural resources for the purpose of commercial development.

Bishop sits as chairman of the House Natural Resources Committee, which was recently criticized by the BIA’s assistant secretary Kevin Washburn. Washburn declared that the committee’s statements and questioning, “harkened back to the termination era” lasting from the 1940’s to the late 1960’s, where it was official federal policy to eliminate collective tribes by attempting to assimilate American Indians as individuals.

If H.R 3764 is passed, petitions to recognize tribes will be reviewed exclusively by Bishop, and the Speaker of the House.

Washburn’s criticisms are not without substance. Representative Don Young of the Natural Resources Committee released documents citing the General Allotment act of 1887 as “humane”, completely ignoring the reality of this covetous legislation, which sought to end collective tribal landholding, and more than halved the land controlled by the many tribes.

This new assault on tribal sovereignty is an echo of earlier legislation meant to disenfranchise American Indians and remove tribal authority.

Bishop’s attempt to take away power from the BIA is found near the bottom of H.R.3764 where it states

 SEC. 11. CLARIFICATION OF FEDERAL RECOGNITION AUTHORITY.

(a) Act Of Congress Required.—An Indian group may receive Federal acknowledgment (or re-acknowledgment) as an Indian tribe only by an Act of Congress. The Secretary may not grant Federal acknowledgment (or re-acknowledgment) to any Indian group.  “

This later portion of the bill also explicitly states that “The Secretary” of the BIA may not  recognize tribes. This degrades the process of petitioning for Federal recognition to a point where the decisions regarding recognition are subject to more arbitrary criteria.

First, if congress has the only say in tribal recognition, then its decisions cannot be subject to litigation. Unlike the BIA whose decision in recognizing a tribe must be a “yes” or “no”, Congressional decisions can hang, and remain ambiguous. Until a clear decision is made, which is not required by H.R 3764, tribes cannot file a lawsuit to appeal any decisions.

Second, passing H.R 3764 as it is currently written could terminate the status of any tribe that has been recognized outside of a congressional decision. Washburn criticized this hidden problem with the bill during his testimony at the Natural Resources committee’s hearing on the bill on October 28th.

He said that “[H.R 3764] could terminate the status of 229 tribes currently recognized in Alaska”. Citing a hearing in the Natural Resources committee on Sep 26th, where members of the committee disputed the legitimacy of tribes existing in Alaska.

Finally, H.R 3764 would make tribal recognition into a politically motivated task that could harm tribal sovereignty,instead of the objective and nonpartisan process the BIA currently uses. Petitioning for tribal recognition with the BIA requires the bureau to review documents of lineage, and to amass other forms of evidence to establish the legitimacy of a tribe and its members.

Congressional recognition can be started or stopped at the whim of a committee member, and be lobbied with stipulations that seriously harm tribal sovereignty. Any law that recognizes a tribe or tribal lands can be riddled with stipulations that restrict land usage or taxes that water down the potential sovereignty of tribes.

Even with clear opposition from the United South and Eastern Tribes and the Ute Tribe of Utah, the bill is being supported by Republican representatives. Representative Don Young dismissed the complaints of the tribes and claimed they were influenced by “lobbyists”, ignoring the completely legitimate concerns of American Indian tribal leaders.

Congress, along with presidential executive orders and federal administration acts have always been able to federally recognized tribes. However, the “Tribal recognition act of 2015” would make it so that all recognitions must explicitly be approved by Congress. This would severely slow down the process of petitioning for federal recognition of tribes by reversing the legitimacy of some tribes and requiring they be reaffirmed by Congress.

Given the inefficient speeds that lawmakers operate with at the federal level, this could take decades. The normally arduous process of recognition will only become more difficult, and conservative members of congress may work to actively impede federal recognition for tribes.

Representatives Rob Bishop and Don Young seem to not care about the best interests of the tribes. They propose legislation that will only hinder tribal affairs, and give their clearly anti-Native agenda power over any new tribal applications.

Instead, American Indian tribes should be consulted to find a solution to making tribal recognition more efficient and equitable, without congressmen pretending to do so for political gains. H.R 3764 is masked as a step forward, but in reality reverts the issue of tribal sovereignty to a 19th century mindset.

Self-governance growing for Tribal Nations

The Bureau of Indian Affairs’ (BIA) role in supervising tribal elections was removed on October 19th by the Obama Administration to encourage more tribal control over Internal Affairs.

Prior to this shift, the BIA handled every aspect of secretarial elections, from deciding who can vote to adding up the results. With the new set-up, tribes no longer have to wait on the BIA to review and conduct secretarial elections, which was a long a process that caused delay.

Tribes now have the option to eliminate secretarial elections, and are even encouraged to do so by the BIA  in order to help tribal self-determination and self-governance.  

This update has now been implemented in the Oneida Nation, and has resulted in the Nation re-working its constitution to include:

“1. The minimum voting age will change from 21 to 18.

2. The tribe’s official name will change from the Oneida Tribe of Indians of Wisconsin to the Oneida Nation.

3. The Secretary of Interior will be removed as the federal oversight authority for future changes to the tribe’s constitution.

4. The formal establishment of the Oneida Judiciary as a branch of government within the tribe’s constitution.

5. The requirement to hold annual and semi-annual meetings on the first Monday of January and July has been removed.”

Tribal leaders have been working on achieving this level of self-governance for over a decade. Efforts in securing self-governance include referendum question voting, community outreach, and presentations at General Tribal Council meetings.

However, this change in regulation has been met with some disputes. A tribal member has challenged the outcome of the Secretarial election before the Interior Board of Indian Appeals, resulting in putting the constitutional reforms on hold.

Once the constitutional reforms have been made, Oneida citizens will not be able to have the BIA intervene on a reservation dispute or oversee future changes to the tribe’s constitution.

In 2009 and 2010, the Obama administration held tribal listening and consultation meetings which lead to this new rule in October 2014. The final ruling on this issue becomes effective on November 18th.  

ICWA guidelines sustained by Court

Guidelines supplementing the Indian Child welfare act were sustained in a legal battle between the Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA) and the National Council for Adoption in another attempt to weaken ICWA’s power.

In 2015, guidelines created by the BIA to assist government agencies and courts in better understanding how to apply ICWA were falsely criticized as binding law. On Tuesday, October 20th, the federal court prevented the guidelines from being withdrawn. The purpose of the guidelines is in defining what the legislation means in terms of custody and other legal issues pertaining to American Indian Children. Yet, the National Council for Adoption and Building Arizona families wanted them erased.

Federal Judge Gerald Bruce Lee denied the National Council for Adoption and Building Arizona Families standing to withdraw ICWA guidelines put forth in 2015 by the BIA.

The ICWA was passed in 1978 by Congress to address and prevent the alarmingly frequent abuses taking place against American Indian children in State foster care systems, by placing them in foster care that was on reservation and tribally managed. The ICWA also attempts to ensure that a child’s placement within foster care would be with American Indian families.

While it is a federal law, the ICWA continues to be violated, where families or tribal members who are willing to adopt are ignored, resulting in their placement in non-Indian homes. In light of this, the BIA released a set of guidelines in February 2015 to provide suggestions about how courts and agencies should engage with custody, adjudications, and post-trial rights relating to ICWA cases.

In an attempt to have them withdrawn, the National Council for Adoption and Building Arizona Families argued that the recently added guidelines violate APA (Administrative Procedure Act, 5. U.S.C, 551-706) by existing as a policy that forces other agencies to abide by guidelines. Both adoption agencies went as far as blaming the guidelines for time spent and money lost through abiding by them.

Federal Judge Gerald Bruce Lee reasoned that the National Council for Adoption and Building Arizona Families did not have standing to ask for the withdrawal of the BIA’s February guidelines.  In his decision he said, “Plaintiffs [National Council/Arizona Families] cannot assert injury in fact for voluntary compliance with guidelines they acknowledged had no binding effect and no enforcement mechanisms.”

The decision asserted that the resources lost by abiding by BIA guidelines cannot be sued for, since the adoption groups were never forced to follow them. Furthermore, while the guidelines remain as suggestions for agencies and courts, they do not have to be binding or abide by APA standards.

This legal victory, in defense of guidelines seeking to ensure ICWA’s adherence, is a reminder of our much needed vigilance in the continual struggle to protect the rights of American Indian children.

State Laws Look to Prohibit Offensive Mascots

        Colorado Governor John Hickenlooper created a task force Tuesday, October 6th to address the offensive representations of American Indians as mascots in his state. As a result, schools with mascots like the Lamar High School Savages and Eaton Reds may be forced to come up with new icons. In hopes of reducing and eliminating derogatory mascots that trivialize and disrespect American Indians, Hickenlooper’s task force includes representatives from both education and indigenous groups including: the Southern Ute Tribe, Ute Mountain Ute tribe, Colorado Commission of Indian Affairs, Denver American Indian Commission, and Native American Rights fund. 

        This task force looks to address the disrespectful use of mascots by creating an open dialogue between school, community, and Indigenous representatives. Furthermore, the task force will reach out to communities affected by these mascots. The task force will also create lists of recommendations for the State of Colorado to correct and address the insulting mascots.

        The dehumanization of American Indians is ingrained in society and taught to be acceptable, as evidenced by sports mascots like the Washington Redskins. Imagine if a team adopted the team name Yellowskins or Blackskins, and presented a stereotypical image for the mascot, the public would be in uproar. People are failing to hold American Indian culture up to the same levels of cultural protection, this is a result of their culture being hidden and constantly undermined. American Indians are among the most marginalized peoples in the United States, and until the media recognizes offenses to American Indian culture as equally harmful and disrespectful as offenses to other cultures, the dehumanization of American Indians will continue.

        Hickenlooper’s task force seeking to dismantle the misuse of American Indian culture is an example of a growing recognition nationwide for regulations preventing the trivialization of American Indians through offensive mascots.The California Racial Mascots act was signed by Governor Jerry Brown on October 11th,  which specifically bans the use of mascots that offend or trivialize American Indian culture.

        The California Racial Mascots Act specifically defines Redskins as a derogatory term, and prohibits public schools and sports teams from adopting such a name. Furthermore, the law requires that schools currently using a derogatory mascot or name change to an icon that does not trivialize culture. To ensure that the law is complied with, the California Racial Mascots Act will help subsidize the costs associated with changing mascots and purchasing new gear.  

        Governors Brown and Hickenlooper set an example for addressing problems of cultural degradation for American Indians in the United States. Offensive mascots impact the lives of American Indians by creating an environment that celebrates the disgrace of American Indian culture, and laws that look to address inequality in the United States have always been necessary to help fix marginalization. By looking at Colorado and California, hopefully other States can follow suit and help prevent the offensive use of American Indian mascots.

           

Bush and Trump: Redskins mascot not offensive

This week, Republican presidential candidates Jeb Bush and Donald Trump declared they have no problem with the Washington “Redskins” name, and that it should be kept as the team’s official nickname. The Lakota People’s Law project believes that this nickname and other use of Natives as mascots are disrespectful to Indians and trivialize important elements of their rich cultural heritage.

When asked about his opinion of the moniker, Trump declared that he knows, “Indians that are extremely proud of that name, they think it’s a positive.” However, he was unable to specifically identify any Native friends that actually did support the name.

Trump has a poor record when it comes to fair representation of Native peoples. In 2000, he funded a smear campaign against the St. Regis Mohawk tribe of New York as a response to their planned casino that would have rivaled his own. Earlier, in 1993, he testified before the House Subcommittee of Indian Affairs that the Mashantucket Pequot Nation was a fabricated group, and that they did not “look like Indians” to him. Trump cannot be trusted to authentically speak for Native Americans.

Bush offers no improvement. When asked his beliefs on the Washington Redskins in a Sirius XM interview, he replied, “I don’t find it offensive. Native American tribes generally don’t find it offensive.”

Unsurprisingly, these two white men are not offended by a dictionary defined racial slur pertaining to Natives. However, various groups and organizations collectively representing 1.5 million Native Americans have called for the team to change its name and mascot.

A spokesman for the anti-Redskins campaign Change the Name released a statement, saying, “What is surprising is that in promoting the use of this slur, (Bush) somehow believes he speaks for Native Americans and can assert that Native American people do not find this slur offensive. He clearly is missing something. What is even more appalling is the governor’s declaration that because he personally doesn’t find this slur offensive, that makes it acceptable.”

Native Americans are a historically underrepresented group in American Politics, which makes them an easy target for politicians and entertainers. Some politicians however, like Republican representative from Oklahoma Tom Cole, an enrolled member of the Chickasaw nation, agree that the mascot is offensive.

“Come on. This is the 21st century … It is very, very, very offensive. This isn’t like warriors or chiefs,” said Cole. “It’s not a term of respect, and it’s needlessly offensive to a large part of our population. They just don’t happen to live around Washington, D.C.”

Congressman Cole brings up an important point: Native Americans are often marginalized and disenfranchised in the United States, as a result of the mistaken belief that they are all ‘gone’ or living on dusty, windswept reservations in the middle of nowhere. This expressly racist perspective forwarded by men who are running for the highest office in this nation only further cements this misperception and actually compounds it.

The truth is that Native Americans are an essential part of the American fabric, and in pop culture and beyond, they deserve to be represented in a way that reflects dignity and pride, not characterized by a racist joke from the 18th century.

The Lakota People’s Law Project does not take positions on political campaigns, but we urge our followers to keep Native American issues in the topmost of their priorities when casting votes in any political election.