In federal Indian law, the treaty operates as our foundational legal text. Reflecting centuries-old historical political arrangements between Indian nations and the United States, treaties remain vital legal instruments that decide dozens of legal cases each year. Yet, these treaties --...

This article responds to an emerging view, in scholarship and popular society, that it is normatively undesirable to employ property law as a means of protecting indigenous cultural heritage. Recent critiques suggest that protections for cultural property impede the free flow of ideas, speech,...

In this article, the Author undertakes a law and literature approach to a major Indian law problem: understanding the losses of allotment. Allotment was a mid 19th - early 20th century federal legislative program to take large tracts of land owned by Indian tribes, allocate smaller parcels to...

The federal public lands contain places with both religious and secular value for American people. American Indians, in particular, hold certain natural features to be sacred, and visit them for ceremonies and worship. Simultaneously, non-Indians use the same places for economic, recreation, and...

Although the Free Exercise Clause prohibits governmental interference with religion, American Indians have been unsuccessful in challenging government actions that harm tribal sacred sites located on federal public lands. The First Amendment dimensions of these cases have been well studied by...

As American Indian nations revitalize their legal systems, there is renewed interest in "tribal law," that is, the law of each of the Indian nations. Today, there is a particular focus on the subject of "individual rights" under tribal law. In tribal contexts, people are highly interested in the...

This paper examines the challenge of protecting American Indian sacred sites located on federal public lands. Many have addressed this issue in the religious freedoms context, but I believe the problem is just as much about property law. The Supreme Court's decision in Lyng v. Northwest Indian...

Rennard Strickland's Beyond the Ethnic Umbrella and the Blue Deer: Some Thoughts for Collectors of Native Painting and Sculpture analyzes the problematic search for "Indianness" in Indian art in a way that helps us look critically at the similar debate on Indian gaming. According to Strickland,...

According to federal Indian law's canons of construction, statutes enacted for the benefit of American Indians and Alaska Natives must be liberally interpreted in their favor. But a doctrine of statutory interpretation presently challenges certain applications of the Indian canons. Announced by...