2 days ago2 min read

A Supreme Court Ruling Cut This State in Half | Facts Matter

Back in the summer of 2020, amidst all the news regarding COVID-19, the lockdowns, the outbreaks, the Black Lives Matter protests and riots, and the presidential election, the Supreme Court issued a monumental ruling that went completely under the radar.

It went unnoticed by so many because of everything else that was happening at the time.

However, the ruling was truly monumental because it effectively cut Oklahoma’s claim to the land in the state in half.

In 1830, President Andrew Jackson signed a treaty that established an area encompassing almost the entire eastern half of present-day Oklahoma as a Native American reservation.

But over the past 190 years, different laws and treaties have effectively chipped away at those lands—and the claims that Native Americans have to them.

That all changed in 2020, however, when the U.S. Supreme Court determined that the laws and treaties passed in the past 200 years have not disestablished these reservations and that the Native Americans who live there still have certain rights because of their unique status on those lands.

Furthermore, the Supreme Court ruling confirmed that the Native American citizens residing on these reservations no longer fall under the jurisdiction of Oklahoma state and local police but rather under the purview of local tribal police and the federal government.

The reason that this matters for people outside of Oklahoma is that this ruling also sets a precedent that other Native American tribes across the United States could use to claw back land that was promised to them by treaties signed hundreds of years ago.

So let’s go through the details of this case—and tease out the implications it could have for other states moving forward.

Views expressed in this video are opinions of the host and guests and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times.