McGirt and Rebuilding of Tribal Nations
Resources for Action
The McGirt decision has changed the legal landscape and created new opportunities for tribal nations starting with the Five Tribes in Eastern Oklahoma and potentially for tribal nations across Indian Country. It also has been the source of confusion, hyperbole, and alarm among some commentators.
The Project on Indigenous Governance and Development (formerly the Harvard Project on American Indian Economic Development) and University of Oklahoma Native Nations Center McGirt Colloquium Toolbox contains a series of briefing papers that explain the ramifications of McGirt in various areas important to tribes and clarify what is and what is not at issue. These briefing papers help affected tribes chart a pathway toward the effective exercise of post-McGirt tribal powers and productive collaboration with state governments. The briefing papers offer ideas and examples of what these processes and outcomes might look like. In particular, they consider at least eight areas through the lens of a tribal government’s responsibilities to its citizens, to other Indians, and to non-Indians on trust lands and fee lands within the external borders of recognized reservations.
We hope these papers will be shared, and the ideas disseminated, in ways that tribal governments and other partners identify as useful for creating dispassionate, helpful guidance to tribes and states in the post-McGirt era.
In This Toolbox
About the Colloquium
Co-Chairs
Director for Research, Project on Indigenous Governance and Development, Harvard University, and Native Nations Institute, University of Arizona (miriam_jorgensen@harvard.edu)
Acknowledgment
The Project, OU Native Nations Center, and Co-Chairs Miriam Jorgensen and Kevin Washburn wish to thank Prof. Robert Anderson of the University of Washington School of Law for his involvement and critical assistance at the early stages of this project.
Core Team
Stephen Greetham, Senior Counsel, Chickasaw Nation
(Stephen.Greetham@chickasaw.net)
Amanda Cobb-Greetham, Professor of Native American Studies and Founding Director of the Native Nations Center, University of Oklahoma (acobb@ou.edu)
Megan Minoka Hill, Senior Director of the Project on Indigenous Governance and Development and Director of the Honoring Nations program, Harvard
University (megan_hill@harvard.edu)
Mari Hulbutta, Associate General Counsel, Chickasaw Nation
(mari.hulbutta@gmail.com)
Joseph P. Kalt, Ford Foundation Professor (Emeritus) of International Political Economy
and Co‐Director of the Project on Indigenous Governance and Development,
Harvard University (joe_kalt@harvard.edu)
University of Oklahoma Native Nations Center Resources
Our goal is to foster respectful and mutually productive relationships between Oklahoma Tribes, the students, the University of Oklahoma, the community and key stakeholders. We work to foster open communication and strengthen institution-to-institution relationships between OU and Native nations in the area of higher education student recruitment and retention, and to advocate on behalf of OU’s Native students to ensure that they receive appropriate services.
Project Resources
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