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Full-Text Articles in Law and Race
Protecting Intangible Cultural Resources: Alternatives To Intellectual Property Law, Gerald Carr
Protecting Intangible Cultural Resources: Alternatives To Intellectual Property Law, Gerald Carr
Michigan Journal of Race and Law
Cultural resources can be defined as "the tangible and intangible effects of an individual or group of people that define their existence, and place them temporally and geographically in relation to their belief systems and their familial and political groups, providing meaning to their lives." The field of cultural resources includes tangible items, such as land, sacred sites, and religious and finerary objects. The field also includes intangible knowledge and customs, such as tribal names, symbols, stories, and ecological, ethnopharmacological, religious, or other traditional knowledge. The tangible cultural resources of tribes can fall under the protection of statutes such as …
Towards A Balanced Approach For The Protection Of Native American Sacred Sites, Alex Tallchief Skibine
Towards A Balanced Approach For The Protection Of Native American Sacred Sites, Alex Tallchief Skibine
Michigan Journal of Race and Law
Protection of "sacred sites" is very important to Native American religious practitioners because it is intrinsically tied to the survival of their cultures, and therefore to their survival as distinct peoples. The Supreme Court in Oregon v. Smith held that rational basis review, and not strict scrutiny, was the appropriate level of judicial review when evaluating the constitutionality of neutral laws of general applicability even when these laws impacted one's ability to practice a religion. Reacting to the decision, Congress enacted the Relgious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA), which reinstated the strict scrutiny test for challenges to neutral laws of general …