Please Save the Date!

Who: Walter R. Echo-Hawk

What: Lecture and Book Signing

Date: Monday, September 27, 2010

Time: 5:30 p.m.

Place: Great Hall, Sandra Day O’Connor College of Law at Arizona State University

Book Title: In the Courts of the Conqueror: The Ten Worst Indian Law Cases Ever Decided” By Walter R. Echo-Hawk

Lecture Title: In the Courts of the Conqueror: Reforming the ‘Dark Side’ of Federal Indian Law

Lecture Description: In the very first case to come before the United States Supreme Court involving a significant Native American issue, Chief Justice John Marshall ominously described the American judicial system as “the courts of the conqueror.” Native Americans have been fundamentally impacted by court decisions that affect their political, property, cultural, and human rights, perhaps more profoundly than any other segment of our society. Often these decisions were colored by the prevailing prejudices, politics, and assumptions of the day. Those decisions embody the dark side of the law as Manifest Destiny swept the continent. The courts provided legal justification for the appropriation of Indian land, the subjugation of Indian nations, and the denial of human rights in American legal history, making everything “perfectly legal.” This lecture examines nefarious legal doctrines and unjust legal fictions which found their way into federal Indian law, and explores how that body of law might be strengthened in the 21st Century to better protect Native America.