Law Commons^™

Friend. Foe, Frenemy: The United States And American Indian Religious Freedom, Allison M. Dussias

Allison M Dussias

FRIEND, FOE, FRENEMY:

THE UNITED STATES AND AMERICAN INDIAN RELIGIOUS FREEDOM

Allison M. Dussias,

New England Law|Boston

In 1990, the Supreme Court decided Employment Division v. Smith, in which the Court concluded that a claim that a neutral and generally applicable criminal law burdens religious conduct need not be evaluated under the compelling governmental interest test set out by the Court in Sherbert v. Verner (1963). The Court relied on two recently decided cases, Bowen v. Roy (1986) and Lyng v. Northwest Indian Cemetery Protective Association (1988). All three of these cases rejected Free Exercise claims brought by American Indians. …

Protecting Pocahontas's World: The Mattaponi Tribe's Struggle Against Virginia's King William Reservoir Project, Allison M. Dussias

Allison M Dussias

This article examines the efforts of the Mattaponi Tribe of Virginia to combat an environmentally destructive reservoir project that threatened sacred and archaeological sites and implicated tribal treaty rights, including fishing rights. The Tribe opposed the project through both the federal and state administrative approval process and litigation. The dispute over the reservoir highlights the difficulties that tribes have faced historically, and continue to face today, as they try to protect their rights to land, water, and subsistence resources.

Spirit Food And Sovereignty: Pathways For Protecting Indigenous Peoples' Subsistence Rights, Allison M. Dussias

Allison M Dussias

Abstract: SPIRIT FOOD AND SOVEREIGNTY: PATHWAYS FOR PROTECTING INDIGENOUS PEOPLES’ SUBSISTENCE RIGHTS

By Professor Allison M. Dussias

This article examines three pathways recently followed by Native American tribes and other Native communities in seeking protection of their rights to culturally valuable and legally protected subsistence resources – wild, renewable resources on which Native peoples have traditionally relied to sustain themselves. They have pursued their claims not only through litigation in U.S. courts, but also through claims to international bodies and through the regulatory process. The sources of law and rights on which they have relied as they followed these different …