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Indian Law And The Miner's Canary: The Signs Of Poison Gas, Rennard Strickland

Cleveland State Law Review

In this fiftieth Cleveland-Marshall lecture I want us to look at some present day examples of Felix Cohen's contention that our treatment of Indians - Indian law itself - acts as a barometer, a miner's canary for society. I want to do this by first looking in detail at the Wisconsin Indian Fishing Rights question and then very briefly at several recent Supreme Court cases in the field of Indian Law particularly the Smith and Duro cases. I believe they do not bode well for any of us. In this brief time I have tried to cover too much but …