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7 - Beyond Indian Law: The Rehnquist Court’s Pursuit of States’ Rights, Color-Blind Justice, and Mainstream Values

from Part II - Voices

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 December 2019

By
David H. Getches
Edited by
Grant Christensen  and
Melissa L. Tatum
Grant Christensen
Affiliation:
University of North Dakota
Melissa L. Tatum
Affiliation:
University of Arizona
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Summary

Beyond Indian Law: documents the Rehnquist Court’s shift away from jurisprudence that permitted a sovereign people to control their own territory, and the people within it, and toward a ‘subjectivist approach’ that allows the Supreme Court to determine what Indian law ought to be. It places this shift within a broader narrative of the Court deviating from well-established interpretive principles. Getches ultimately critiques the signals the Rehnquist Court has sent in its existing jurisprudence and warns that future cases will see state interests prevail in their control of the reservation, attempts to protect Indians as sovereigns will fail, and that mainstream values will be protected.

Keywords

Rehnquistplenary powercanons of constructionIndian lawfederalism
Type
Chapter
Information
Reading American Indian Law
Foundational Principles
 , pp. 164 - 187
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2019

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References

Further Reading

Christensen, Grant, Judging Indian Law: What Factors Influence Individual Justice’s Votes on Indian Law in the Modern Era, 43 U. Tol. L. Rev. 267 (2012).Google Scholar
Fletcher, Matthew L. M., Indian Courts and Fundamental Fairness: ‘Indian Courts and the Future’ Revisited, 84 U. Colo. L. Rev. 59 (2013).Google Scholar
Getches, David, Conquering the Cultural Frontier: The New Subjectivism of The Supreme Court in Indian Law, 84 Cal. L. Rev. 1573 (1996).Google Scholar
Gould, L. Scott, The Consent Paradigm: Tribal Sovereignty at the Millennium, 96 Colum. L. Rev. 809 (1996).Google Scholar
Johnson, Ralph W. & Martinis, Berry, Chief Justice Rehnquist and the Indian Law Cases, 16 Pub. Land L. Rev. 1 (1997).Google Scholar
Koehn, Melissa L., The New American Caste System: The Supreme Court and Discrimination among Civil Rights Plaintiffs, 32 Mich. J.L. Ref. 49 (1998).Google Scholar
LaVelle, John, Sanctioning a Tyranny: The Diminishment of Ex Parte Young, Expansion of Hans Immunity, and Denial of Indian Rights in Coeur d’Alene Tribe, 31 Ariz. St. L.J. 787 (1999).Google Scholar
Skibine, Alexander Tallchief, The Supreme Court’s Last 30 Years of Federal Indian Law: Looking for Equilibrium or Supremacy?, 8 Colum. J. Race & L. 22 (2018).Google Scholar
Williams, Robert A. Jr., Like a Loaded Weapon: The Rehnquist Court, Indian Rights, and the Legal History of Racism in America (University of Minnesota Press 2005).CrossRefGoogle Scholar

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