Henry and I are ready

repository.law.umich.edu/mjrl/vol29/i...
@henry-ishitani.bsky.social

Special thanks to @toreydolan.bsky.social for helping me think through this piece and for her ongoing work calling out bad uses of Indian law

Anyway, if you want something very useful and responsive to this moment, see Greg Ablavsky and Bethany Berger. papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers....

It’s also not particularly useful because I wrote it last fall for a law review symposium, when I thought Elk was primarily a historical curiosity useful for clarifying the development of federal Indian policy. Not an insulting touchstone in an absurd ongoing debate about the nature of our country.

It’s not particularly useful in part because Elk v Wilkins is really not useful for those who would take away birthright citizenship. It speaks to a unique moment in American history between two major restructuring events: Reconstruction and Allotment. A moment foreign to the present.

Available on SSRN papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers....

We were lucky to have you!

Thanks for all your help, Tanner!

Thank you!!

This is something I’ve been thinking about as a very junior scholar. When and how I ought to be clear about my political commitments. I think it’s helpful to see senior scholars model this, even if they don’t have the same pre-tenure considerations.

This legal history project studies the Courts of Indian Offenses, the federally imposed reservation courts designed to criminalize tribal culture. This archival study shows how in practice, Native actors co-opted the courts to serve their own ends in the late nineteenth century.