Title: The Supreme Court’s big Native American rights case, McGirt v. Oklahoma, explained - Vox
Headings: The Supreme Court’s landmark new Native American rights decision, explained
The Supreme Court’s landmark new Native American rights decision, explained
No, they didn’t give away half of Oklahoma — but it is a big deal.
McGirt is a case about whether the federal government must honor its obligations to Native Americans — but only up to a point
So what does this mean for Oklahoma?
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Content: It elects its own government and operates its own court system. As Gorsuch’s opinion notes, it “operates a police force and three hospitals; commands an annual budget of more than $350 million; and employs over 2,000 people.” McGirt, according to Riyaz Kanji, one of the authors of the Creek Nation’s brief, “will if anything enhance the Nation’s ability to offer robust governmental programs and services throughout the Reservation (both for Nation citizens and non-citizens).” By contrast, if McGirt had gone the other way, much of these services could have potentially been endangered. McGirt is a case about whether the federal government must honor its obligations to Native Americans — but only up to a point
Gorsuch begins his opinion by referencing the Trail of Tears, an atrocity in 1838 during which the US government forced thousands of Native Americans out of their homes and ordered them to march more than 1,000 miles to relocate to Oklahoma. More than 4,000 victims of this act of barbarism died along the way. Yet the federal government also sought to give this forced march a patina of legitimacy by entering into treaties with the displaced people. Under the terms of the United States’ treaty with the Creek Nation, that nation ceded, in an 1832 treaty’s words, “all their land, East of the Mississippi river” in return for a promise that “the Creek country west of the Mississippi shall be solemnly guarantied to the Creek Indians.”