Indigenous Rights Movements & the Law

Experts at the Harvard Project on American Indian Economic Development look at COVID-19’s economic impact on Native American communities across the U.S.

Misclassification raises fears of hidden health emergencies in one of the country’s most vulnerable populations

At the U.N. Water Development Conference, U.S. Secretary of the Interior Deb Haaland delivered the U.S. statement and called for Indigenous governance of shared waters, underscoring the importance of Indigenous-led conservation in addressing the climate and drought crises. This comes after the U.S. Supreme Court heard arguments last Monday on whether to allow the Navajo Nation to argue the federal government must address the Native American tribe’s water rights. For more, we are joined in Fort Defiance, Arizona, by Crystal Tulley-Cordova, principal hydrologist for the Navajo Nation Department of Water Resources, water management branch, covering 27,000 square miles of reservation land that straddles New Mexico, Arizona and Utah, much of which borders the Colorado River. She talks about what must be done to address the ongoing lack of access to water there now as the west battles a historic drought.

We feature interviews, talks, and short audio documentaries about politics, culture, and history from an Indigenous left perspective. The Red Nation podcast is co-hosted by Nick Estes and Jen Marley with help from our friend and comrade Sina. Email: rednationpodcast@gmail.com For more information about the Red Nation visit: therednation.org. https://www.patreon.com/redmediapr

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Joe Biden said Tuesday he is establishing national monuments on more than half a million acres in Nevada and Texas and creating a marine sanctuary in U.S. waters near the Pacific Remote Islands southwest of Hawaii.

The US Forest Service is expected to re-issue a key …

What water the United States owes the Navajo Nation under the 1868 Treaty of Bosque Redondo formed the crux of the argument in Arizona v. Navajo Nation. The treaty, known by the Navajo people as the Naal Tsoos Sani, or the Old Paper, established the Navajo Reservation as a “permanent home” for the N

The FBI said these rehab groups are not giving the proper care promised to patients and are still receiving federal funds.

Disproportionate violence against Indigenous persons in Canada includes uncounted disappearances of Indigenous children, women, and men. Canada’s decades of failure to prevent and halt disappearances forms part of a long litany of grave international human rights violations against Indigenous Peoples. Continued reports of officially hushed-up violence lead to increasingly clarion allegations of genocide. An unknown […]

The tribe says an 1868 treaty means the federal government has a duty to ensure its people have sufficient water on a reservation where thousands do not have running water.

The U.S. Supreme Court will soon decide a critical water rights case in the arid Southwest.

The Navajo Nation goes before the Supreme Court in a water rights case it says is about ending nearly two centuries of injustice.

The transfers marked another example of Indigenous people reclaiming stewardship over the land and animals that their ancestors managed for thousands of years.

Statements recognizing indigenous rights to territories seized by colonial powers may be well-meaning. But some indigenous leaders fear these acknowledgements may become routine and performative.

This post remembers Native American Heritage Month, and discusses activist negotiator Hank Adams, Assiniboine-Sioux, and the impacts of his work.

Two Native people share how the Indian Child Welfare Act impacted their lives as the law faces a challenge at the Supreme Court.

for Federal Agencies on recognizing and including Indigenous Knowledge in Federal research, policy, and decision making. This announcement coincides with the Biden-Harris Administration’s 2022 Tribal Nations Summit and responds to a 2021 OSTP-CEQ memorandum that called for development of the guidance with Tribal consultation and Indigenous community engagement, as well as agency, expert, and public input.

for Federal Agencies on recognizing and including Indigenous Knowledge in Federal research, policy, and decision making. This announcement coincides with the Biden-Harris Administration’s 2022 Tribal Nations Summit and responds to a 2021 OSTP-CEQ memorandum that called for development of the guidance with Tribal consultation and Indigenous community engagement, as well as agency, expert, and public input.

Today, the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) and the White House Council on Environmental Quality (CEQ) jointly released new government-wide guidance  and an accompanying implementation memorandum for Federal Agencies on recognizing and including Indigenous Knowledge in Federal research, policy, and decision making. This announcement coincides with the Biden-Harris Administration’s 2022 Tribal Nations…

The US Court of Appeals for the 10th Circuit rejected the Biden administration’s defense of oil and gas fracking in the Greater Chaco region of northwest New Mexico.

Proposed legislation would codify the rights of Indigenous students to wear tribal regalia.

Indian law is a framework for making decisions about Indigenous sovereignty and peoples, but recent Supreme Court rulings create new debates despite centuries of precedents

Reclaiming Native Truth is a national effort to foster cultural, social and policy change by empowering Native Americans to counter discrimination, invisibility and the dominant narratives that limit Native opportunity, access to justice, health and self-determination. Reclaiming Native Truth’s goal is to move hearts and minds toward greater respect, inclusion and social justice for Native Americans.

By Katarina Ziervogel Tamara Chipman, a 22-year-old woman from Moricetown First Nations in British Columbia first went missing on September 21, 2005 near Prince Rupert. Tamara was last seen hitchhiking from Prince Rupert to Terrace in British Columbia, on Highway 16, best known as the Highway of Tears, where several other women have gone missing or have been found murdered. The name “Highway of Tears” gives Highway 16 an ominous energy. It’s a long route for hitchhikers who once thought it was safe to travel the highway in beautiful British Columbia. Chipman’s aunt Gladys Radek did not foresee that the time she spent with Tamara in 2001 would be the last time she saw her. All families of missing and murdered Indigenous women unfortunately share that in common with Gladys, which led her to create a non-profit organization called “Walk4Justice”...

A federal judge has ordered the Biden administration to reinstate a drilling lease that has been in dispute for decades on land near the Blackfeet Indian Reservation.

A groundbreaking free-tuition program has administrators determining who qualifies. It’s harder than it looks.