Faculty in the News
In the News
Native spiritual and tribal rights are the focus of legal discussion
Publication date: March 10, 2009
Source: Indian Country Today
Author: Carol Berry
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Indian Country Today mentioned Professor Stacy Leeds' participation in the Native Americans, Race and the Constitution conference on Feb. 27 at the University of Colorado Law School. The conference drew faculty and staff from law schools at Harvard University and at universities in Colorado, Michigan, Kansas and Hawaii, and from NARF.
Indian Country Today wrote:
Conference participants also included Prof. Stacy Leeds, University of Kansas School of Law and a former Cherokee Nation Supreme Court Justice, who described Cherokee Freedmen cases in tribal and federal courts, including a new case filed Feb. 3.
A long-standing dispute over the citizenship status of descendents of freed Cherokee slaves is at the heart of the recent filing, which asks the federal court to decide whether the freedmen descendants have federal citizenship rights in the tribe.
The Cherokee Nation argues that the freedmen have no continuing federal right to tribal citizenship because the freedmen provisions of the Treaty of 1866 were abrogated by Congress when it passed the Five Tribes Act in 1906, she said in material provided for the conference.
The freedmen argue that the freedmen provisions of the treaty are still binding federal and tribal law.