LAW 678LEC - Federal Indian Law

In Federal Indian Law, you will learn about the legal relationship between American Indian nations and the United States, including implications for states and individual citizens. American Indian tribes have a legal status that is unique both within our legal system and throughout the world. The United States Supreme Court has affirmed that Tribes are sovereign nations with rights to self-governance. And yet the Court has also acquiesced in the unilateral Congressional abrogation of aspects of that sovereign status. In addition, the Supreme Court itself has also engaged in extensive common law decision-making regarding the scope of tribal sovereignty. The resulting complex legal framework affects not only tribes and individual tribal members, but non-Indians as well. To understand the complexities of the present, it is necessary to have some understanding of the historical situation that brought us here. The course will therefore begin with historical materials, followed by an overview of federal Indian policy periods, and then will proceed to examine the legal framework chronologically at first, and then by subject matter.

Credits: 3