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Full-Text Articles in Law
A Race Or A Nation? Cherokee National Identity And The Status Of Freedmen's Descendants, S. Alan Ray
A Race Or A Nation? Cherokee National Identity And The Status Of Freedmen's Descendants, S. Alan Ray
Michigan Journal of Race and Law
This Article examines the Cherokee Freedmen controversy to assess whether law and biology can function as sufficient models for crafting Cherokee identity at this crucial moment in the tribe's history. The author will argue that while law and biology are historically powerful frames for establishing tribal self-identity, they are inadequate to the task of determining who should enjoy national citizenship. The wise use of sovereignty, the author suggests, lies in creating a process of sustained dialogical engagement among all stakeholders in the definition of Cherokee citizenship on the question of Cherokee identity. This dialogue should ideally have been undertaken before …
Two Spirits, Two Eras, Same Sex: For A Traditionalist Perspective On Native American Tribal Same-Sex Marriage Policy, Jeffrey S. Jacobi
Two Spirits, Two Eras, Same Sex: For A Traditionalist Perspective On Native American Tribal Same-Sex Marriage Policy, Jeffrey S. Jacobi
University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform
Recently, several states amended their constitutions to define marriage as only a union between a man and a woman. Many Native American Indian tribal governments thereafter also adopted laws prohibiting homosexual marriages. However, this new policy conflicts with traditional tribal values. This Note shows that historically many tribes accepted and even honored same-sex unions. This Note proposes that tribes consider their traditions as they existed before European contact, and argues that, for some tribes, same-sex civil unions are a historically and culturally appropriate answer to the modern objections to same-sex marriage.
The Plight Of "Nappy-Headed" Indians: The Role Of Tribal Sovereignty In The Systematic Discrimination Against Black Freedmen By The Federal Government And Native American Tribes, Terrion L. Williamson
The Plight Of "Nappy-Headed" Indians: The Role Of Tribal Sovereignty In The Systematic Discrimination Against Black Freedmen By The Federal Government And Native American Tribes, Terrion L. Williamson
Michigan Journal of Race and Law
This Note concerns the role the government has played in the exclusion of Black Freedmen from Native American nations through its implementation and interpretation of the doctrine of tribal sovereign immunity ("tribal sovereignty" or "tribal immunity"). Part I discusses the background of the Freedmen within the Five Civilized Tribes and provides an overview of the doctrine of tribal sovereign immunity, including its role in the controversy concerning the status of Black Indians. Part II discusses the interpretations given to the doctrine of tribal sovereign immunity by United States courts and executive agencies and the effects of those interpretations on relations …
Race And The Right To Vote After Rice V. Cayetano, Ellen D. Katz
Race And The Right To Vote After Rice V. Cayetano, Ellen D. Katz
Articles
Last Term, the Supreme Court relied on Gomillion [v. Lightfoot] to hold that Hawaii, like Alabama before it, had segregated voters by race in violation of the Fifteenth Amendment. The state law at issue in Rice v. Cayetano provided that only "Hawaiians" could vote for the trustees of the state's Office of Hawaiian Affairs ("OHA"), a public agency that oversees programs designed to benefit the State's native people. Rice holds that restricting the OHA electorate to descendants of the 1778 inhabitants of the Hawaiian Islands embodied a racial classification that effectively "fenc[ed] out whole classes of ...ci tizens from decisionmaking …