The Frustration Begins

The language in a court decision and in a piece of legislation is incredibly important. There is a general meaning, a general importance, but when looking at legal documents, you have to analyze the specific language as well. I mostly spent my time this week reading the American Indian Religious Freedoms Act along with the court cases Badoni v. Higginson, Wisconsin v. Yoder, and Sequoyah v. Tennessee Valley Authority, along with some other side research. What I’ve read so far has astounded me, and I have thoughts to share.

First, it begins with the American Indian Religious Freedoms Act, which I knew had many critics but didn’t understand why until I read the Act myself. The entire piece of legislation is about a page and a quarter, and the meat of it is a single paragraph (If you’d like to read it for yourself, click the name of the act). On one hand, the bill is a wonderful gesture and show of good will towards Native Americans, along with recognition of the failings of US policy with regards to protecting religious freedoms for American Indian tribes. On the other hand, it is an empty piece of legislation because there are no concrete requirements to ensure the protection of these freedoms and the enforcement of the bill. Off the bat, I think that consulting with tribal leaders about policy and action should be required. I was very surprised that wasn’t included. What I was and am interested to see is how this law is applied in court cases and how the government attempts to follow and enforce the law.

As for the court cases, those are a whole other story. I respect the courts as an establishment of justice within the United States, but this week I became very frustrated with the courts in the decisions I read from 1979 and 1980. To briefly give background on the cases, both Badoni and Seqouyah had to do with tribes brining claims that sacred land was being desecrated and requested that the government halt the actions affecting the sacred land. Both cases involved the flooding of sacred land. The Yoder case had to do with compulsory school up to 16 and the Amish claims against required high school because it infringed on their religious freedom and teaching of their children (the Yoder case is important because of the balancing interests test, which I will discuss more in my final project). A few things stood out to me while reading these cases. The first was how quickly the court was to reason against the First Amendment claims of tribes, while the Amish case seemed to get a lot more attention and thought in writing. The way in which the decisions were written almost seemed to blow off the Native American religious freedoms claims, which is incredibly frustrating because we hold our Bill of Rights in such high esteem and importance, and that should carry through for all people.

The second thing that really jumped out at me was the way that the Court wrote about the Native American religious traditions. The language was riddled with underlying doubt and disbelief, not taking the practices and importance seriously. For example, using “allege” instead of simply stating the practice. However, the Amish religion was described drastically differently in Yoder, and that is where the contrast was so clear to me. There was unwillingness in the court to take beliefs they didn’t understand seriously.

I’m not even close to being done reading court cases and legislation, but I’m interested to see if anything changes and how these cases are used as precedents in later cases. Hopefully the Court moved away from how it was in these cases later on in the late 1900’s.

Rainbow Bridge in Utah, the Navajo sacred site disputed in Badoni v. Higginson

#reading #1900s #questions #religiousfreedom #NativeAmerican #courtcases #legislation #AmericanIndianReligiousFreedomsAct #frustration