Legislation and Litigation Concerning American Indians

Abstract

The period 1957-77 witnessed an increasing tendency to include Indians in programs and legislation that affected all Americans, particularly in the field of social wel fare and development. Indians, as a whole, made good use of their eligibility for these new opportunities, and entered the mainstream of public social concern. Legislation dealing specifically with Indian rights and legal status was generally trivial because no administration made more than a perfunc tory effort to define the larger philosophical issues that might have clarified and modernized the Indian legal status. In liti gation Indians were unusually successful in some of their efforts, although, again, truly definitive cases that might have proved a fertile ground for long-term gains in the development of contemporary understanding were sparse. Generally, those cases which might have produced landmark theories or doc trines, the Supreme Court refused to take and the decisions, remaining on the federal circuit level, are not sufficiently strong or clear to provide a basis for further development. The era ended with a state of benign confusion, in which Indians seemed more concerned with funding programs than sketching out in broader and more comprehensive terms the ideologies and theories that are necessary for sustained growth. It was, basically, an undistinguished era, but one of maturing and awareness.