Sherry Treppa: BIA shouldn't intrude on internal matters

All Native Americans should be deeply concerned about a recent federal court decision ordering the BIA to decide who can be a member of one California tribe and how the tribal government should be organized – all for the sake of protecting “potential” tribal members instead of the will of the tribe. Prior to the December 13 order by the D.C. District Court, in California Valley Miwok Tribe v. Jewell, No. 11-CV-00160 (D.D.C.), the BIA respected the sovereign right of each tribe to establish its own enrollment procedures and determine their form of government. This all changed when the court stated the BIA has a trust responsibility to non-tribal members seeking membership and ordered the BIA to consider a tribal government’s motivation in prior and future enrollment decisions. This decision is paternalism at its worst and flies in the face of everything it means to be a Sovereign Indian tribe.

The decision stems from a leadership dispute with the California Valley Miwok Tribe. In 1998, the five members of the Tribe organized as a general council to govern the tribe and established a constitution and membership roll for the tribe. The BIA recognized the tribe under this government in 1998. The BIA then recognized the five-member general council again in 2011 after over a decade of trying to intervene while the tribe resisted the BIA’s groundless efforts to impose its will on the tribe. Now dozens of non-tribal members along with one of the original five members of the tribe’s general council seek to change the tribe’s enrollment criteria and government structure. Under the recent court decision, the BIA will uphold the will of these non-tribal members over the majority of the tribe’s general council.