A federal judge has just given new life to the efforts of the descendants of Chief Seattle to gain federal recognition for his tribe, the Duwamish Tribe of Washington. Specifically, Judge John Coughenour has vacated a negative determination of tribal status by the Department of the Interior and remanded the file to the Department with direction to reconsider the tribal Acknowledgement Petition under all applicable regulations, rather than only half of them.

This order reversed one of the most controversial actions in the history of the Department of the Interior's frequently criticized administrative tribal recognition process managed by the Office of Federal Acknowledgment ("OFA"), and it validated actions of former Acting Assistant Secretary for Indian Affairs Michael Anderson, who had written a positive determination for Duwamish over OFA's objections and proposed negative order in the final hours of the Clinton Administration on January 19, 2001. The Bush Administration withdrew the Anderson Final Determination prior to its publication in the Federal Register and subsequently replaced it with a final negative determination some nine months later.