Diné College
But the June 29 Supreme Court ruling in Oklahoma v. Castro-Huerta has placed that sovereignty into question, and Native American scholars are worried about the implications for their people, nations, schools, and the new precedent this sets for future rulings.
“Make no mistake: this is an attack on tribal sovereignty,” said Carrie Billy, president and CEO of the American Indian Higher Education Council (AIHEC). Billy worked with Dr. David E. Yarlott, Jr., chair of the AIHEC Board of Directors and president of Little Big Horn College, a TCU in Crow Agency, MT, to draft a statement in the wake of the ruling.
"Tribal sovereignty is an inherent right—it was not granted by the U.S. government, and it cannot be taken away by the U.S. government," the statement read. "It is acknowledged in binding treaty obligations that even the Supreme Court cannot overturn."
Oklahoma v. Castro-Huerta is a criminal case, and its decision gives the state concurrent jurisdiction with the federal government and tribal governments, essentially folding reservations into the states in which they reside. This allows for state-led criminal prosecutions of non-Natives for any crimes that happen in federally established Native territory.
The ruling also went against precedent established just two years earlier in the case of McGirt v. Oklahoma.
Cheryl Najera, a criminal justice instructor at the College of the Muscogee Nation, a TCU in Okmulgee, OK, said the McGirt decision felt like the Supreme Court finally understood what Native Americans had always known: “that our reservations, dating back to removal, were never disestablished.”
