Violence against Women: Fixing the law T
lenges wrought by the Oliphant decision. [It] is an exceptional play.” The reaction to the Sliver performance at
Yale was tremendous. Many attendees wrote feedback to the organizers, including one per- son who offered, “I am ashamed to say I knew very little (basically nothing) about VAWA and the effort to restore tribal jurisdiction before seeing the play – but [I am] grateful to have had the opportunity to remedy my ignorance and to be moved and inspired at the same time.” Another person remarked, “what an incredibly powerful and moving play, which I cannot stop thinking about and talking about to anyone who will listen.” Jones felt it was necessary to have the play shown at the Yale Law School. “Yale Law School graduates make up the highest proportion of Supreme Court clerks and other federal clerks,” she revealed, “[and] it is important for them to become educated about the subject.” X
For more information see
sliverofafullmoon.org or follow Mary Kathryn Nagle on Twitter @MKNAGLE.
Anya Montiel (Tohono O’odham/Mexican), a frequent con- tributor to American Indian magazine, is a doctoral candidate at Yale University.
he fi ght for equal protection for Native women under the law has been long and con- stant. In 1978, the same year as the Oliphant decision, Tillie
Black Bear (Sicangu Lakota) testifi ed to the “Battered Women: Issues of Public Policy” hearings for the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights. She informed the commission that domestic violence also affected Native women, many of whom lived in rural, iso- lated areas far from urban resources. She requested the building of women’s shelters in South Dakota and for “interdisciplinary cooperation among agencies.” In 1990, then-Senator Joe Biden (D-
Del.) introduced the fi rst version of the Violence Against Women Act to the U.S. Congress.
It sought to change law en-
forcement practices, improve the criminal justice system and implement services for survivors. The law was introduced again in Congress in 1994 and passed with bi- partisan support as Title IV of the Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act, but it provided no protection or funding for Native women. In 2003, tribal advocates told the
National Congress of American Indians about the necessity of having VAWA in- clude Native women. Their presentation resulted in a task force to bring the cause to a national level. When President George W. Bush signed the VAWA into law in 2005, it included the “Title IX Safety for Indian Women” which provided funding for tribes but did not correct the jurisdiction prob- lem created by Oliphant. Between 2005 and 2007, the U.S. Attor-
neys did not prosecute almost 52 percent of violent crimes on Indian lands, 67 percent of these represented sexual abuse-related cases. In 2008, a delegation of Native women traveled to Geneva, Switzerland, to attend a session of the UN Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination. They presented evidence about the high rate of violence against Native women and the fail-
ure of the United States to prosecute or provide protection for women. The UN Committee is- sued recommendations to the United States on correcting the situation. When VAWA expired in December 2011,
Congress failed to reauthorize it, and the law remained expired for more than 500 days. Senators Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.) and Mike Crapo (R-Idaho) introduced a bill for the re- authorization of VAWA in February 2012. Sec- tion 904 of the bill included a provision that gave “Indian tribes jurisdiction over domestic violence, dating violence and violations of protective orders that occur on their lands.” Section 910, however, gave tribal jurisdic- tion in Alaska “only to the Indian country of the Metlakatla Indian Community,” thereby excluding 228 federally-recognized tribes in Alaska. The Leahy-Crapo bill passed the Sen- ate in April 2012 and moved to the House, where the bill failed to advance. In February 2013, the Senate passed the
bill again with every female senator voting for it. It passed the House by a vote of 286 to 138. President Obama signed the bill into law on March 7, 2013. But it still included Section 910, excluding 228 Alaska Native tribes. The Indian Law and Order Commis- sion called Section 910 “unconscionable,” and the Washington Post reported that Senator Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) exempted Alaska Native tribes because the VAWA legislation pertained only to “Indian country” or tribes with reservations. The Alaska Federation of Natives addressed
a letter to Murkowski stating that “although Alaska Natives comprise only 15.2 percent of the population of the State of Alaska, they comprise 47 percent of the victims of domes- tic violence and 61 percent of the victims of sexual assault.” The exclusion of 228 Alaska Native tribes left 40 percent of tribes in the United States unprotected. In December 2014, Obama signed into law a repeal of Section 910 or the “Alaska exemption.” But jurisdictional issues remain in the current version, and ac- tivists are petitioning to resolve them.
SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION 35
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