Contents and Arrangement
Online

Subseries 4: Legal Cases, 1934-1991

36 boxes
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Restricted Content

Collection Overview

Collection Description & Creator Information

Scope and Contents

Series 2: Subject Files, Subseries 4: Legal Cases (1934-1991) consists of correspondence, briefs, pleadings, transcripts, and clippings dating largely from the 1950s to the 1980s and concerning the various legal cases in which the AAIA was interested or involved, whether through direct representation or through the filing of amicus curiae -- "friend of the court" -- briefs. The material in this subseries was generated in significant measure by staff attorney Bertram Hirsch and General Counsel Arthur Lazarus, Jr., though the activities of attorneys such as Richard Schifter, Lawrence Rappoport, and William Lamb and executive directors such as La Verne Madigan, William Byler, and Steven Unger are also documented. While some files reveal the strategy employed by the Association in selecting cases and offer insights into the tactics it pursued within and without the courtroom, others consist solely of court related documents. This subseries clearly demonstrates the shifting focus of the AAIA's legal concerns: from matters of criminal law in the 1950s and 1960s to matters of family law in the 1970s and 1980s, a practical extension of its commitment to the Indian Child Welfare Act of 1978. The precise success rate of the Association's legal activities cannot be readily determined given the fact that many files fail to cover cases from their initiation, through the long appellate process, to their ultimate conclusion. However, as favorable correspondence and court opinions show, the AAIA could take satisfaction in many judgements.

Some files are closed for 75 years from the date of creation of their most recent document for reasons of confidentiality. These include all Family Law cases, typically involving minors in highly sensitive proceedings, and some of the material in the Criminal Law and Legal Aid components of this subseries. Files are arranged alphabetically by case name, or, in the absence of identifiable court action, by the name of the individual, entity, or subject at issue. Supplemental information indicating the subject of the case and the tribe or jurisdiction involved is frequently provided parenthetically. The files in this subseries are divided into five broad groupings: Constitutional Rights; Criminal Law; Family Law -- by far the largest of these components -- ; Land and Water Rights; and Legal Aid.

Constitutional Rights includes issues of taxation, voting rights, educational rights and school desegregation, religious freedom, and requests for entitlements. Of major interest to the Association was a class action suit against the state of Alaska, Molly Hootch, et al. v. Alaska State-Operated School System, et al. (Hootch later settled out of court, and the case continued as Anna Tobeluk, et al. v. Marshall Lind, et al.), which represented an attempt by native communities to secure state funds to establish schools. The decision in this case, which went against the state, proved controversial, as very small towns, some with just a few children, were given large sums of money to erect school buildings. Also under this heading can be found cases concerning the right of Native Americans to use peyote in religious ceremonies, veterans' desires to be buried in private cemeteries, battles over liquor laws, claims for welfare and social security payments, and issues relating to the termination of the federal government's relationship with certain tribes.

Criminal Law includes such matters as rights to due process, denial of parole, capital punishment, complaints of police brutality, and police jurisdiction on reservations. Of particular interest is the capital case, Loyd Grandsinger v. Nebraska, which involved a man whose due process rights had plainly been violated through the incompetence of his attorney. The AAIA's counsel and officers were less concerned with Grandsinger's guilt or innocence than with ensuring his right to a fair trial. The Association rallied to his defense and orchestrated a Defense Committee, which raised money to aid his cause. Grandsinger's conviction was overturned, and he was released. However, a few weeks after his release he was arrested for stealing a car, and the Defense Committee was dissolved amid some embarrassment.

Family Law encompasses such subjects as adoption, child abuse, parental rights, and the "kidnapping" of children by state welfare agencies. Many files provide a heart wrenching account of family loss and the primitive living conditions, substance abuse, and general poverty endured by a disturbing number of Native Americans. As the plethora of material under this heading attests, the welfare of Native American children became one of the AAIA's major preoccupations. Most of these files concern the reunification of families through the repatriation of children removed from reservations and placed in foster or adoptive homes, many of which were geographically and culturally remote. While bereft mothers were often at the center of such cases, tribal leaders, fearing that a disproportionately large number of Native American children were being taken from their natural families and placed in non-Indian care, sued for custody as well. Thus, while some cases deal with familial issues on an intensely personal level, others are broadly concerned with the rights of tribes to jurisdiction over the welfare and future of their children.

Land and Water Rights is concerned with issues relating to land claims, rights to natural resources, fishing and hunting rights, the sale of lands by the federal government, and the prerogative of Native American landlords to remove their non-Indian tenants. The Oneida Indian Nation land claims in New York constitute a large proportion of material under this heading. The Oneidas sought to regain a five million acre strip of land running from the northern border to the southern border of New York, including Syracuse, by challenging the legality of treaties concluded in the eighteenth century. A smaller claim for 250,000 acres, including Oneida County, was granted by the courts but then reversed. The initial ruling worried many non-Indian land owners, who feared that the precedent set by the court could have the potential to radically undermine existing property relations, a fear which proved unfounded.

Legal Aid contains material relating to clinics held on the Pine Ridge Oglala Sioux, Lake Traverse Sisseton-Wahpeton Sioux, and Devils Lake Sioux reservations in the 1960s and 1970s. Funded by the AAIA and coordinated by local attorney Dennis Hill, these activities took the form of "advice and counseling services" rather than legal representation and included "interpretation of laws, discussing and explaining rights, advice in preparing wills or other legal documents, referring individual cases or persons to appropriate agencies or firms," and so forth. Among the items to be found in these files are reports on the clinics, discussions of the practices of tribal courts, and guidelines for and evaluations of the program as a whole.

Arrangement

The files in this subseries are divided into five broad groupings: Constitutional Rights; Criminal Law; Family Law ; Land and Water Rights; and Legal Aid. The files in the first four groupings are arranged generally alphabetically by case name, or, in the absence of identifiable court action, by the name of the individual, entity, or subject at issue. The Legal Aid files are arranged in chronological order.

Collection History

Appraisal

No information about appraisal is available for this collection prior to the 2007 addition. Materials related to particular scholarships were separated from the August 2007 addition [ML.2007.027] and returned to the donor as requested.

No materials were separated from subsequent additions in 2008-2015. The exception is the 2014 addition [ML.2014.007]; AAIA newsletters that had already been catalogued by Princeton's Firestone Library were removed.

Approximately 1.5 linear feet consisting of routine financial information, personnel records, and other out-of-scope materials were removed from the October 2016 addition [ML.2016.034].

Sponsorship:

These records were processed with the generous support of The National Endowment for the Humanities and The John Foster and Janet Avery Dulles Fund.

Processing Information

These Records were initially arranged and described between December 1995 - June 1997 by John S. Weeren, with the able assistance of many hands and, in particular, Tom Rosko, Mitra Martin, Christina Aragon, and Shawneequa Callier. Additions received from 2005 to 2008 were processed in 2008 by Lynn Durgin. An inventory, the MARC record and the finding aid were updated at this time. Materials from subsequent additions from 2009-2016 were added to the collection as separate series. Box and folder lists for these additionss were created and the MARC record and finding aid were updated. Some materials in the May 2011, September 2012, and 2014 additions were re-housed in archival boxes or folders during accessioning. Digital materials in Series 8 were processed by Elena Colon-Marrero in July 2015.

Access & Use

Conditions Governing Access

The Family Law component and portions of the Criminal Law and Legal Aid components of Legal Cases are closed for a period of 75 years following the date of their creation. All other records in this subseries are closed for a period of 15 years following the date of their creation.

Conditions Governing Use

Single copies may be made for research purposes. To cite or publish quotations that fall within Fair Use, as defined under U. S. Copyright Law, no permission is required. For instances beyond Fair Use, any copyright vested in the donor has passed to The Trustees of Princeton University and researchers do not need to obtain permission, complete any forms, or receive a letter to move forward with use of donor-created materials within the collection. For materials in the collection not created by the donor, or where the material is not an original, the copyright is likely not held by the University. In these instances, it is the responsibility of the researcher to determine whether any permissions related to copyright, privacy, publicity, or any other rights are necessary for their intended use of the Library's materials, and to obtain all required permissions from any existing rights holders, if they have not already done so. Princeton University Library's Special Collections does not charge any permission or use fees for the publication of images of materials from our collections. The department does request that its collections be properly cited and images credited. More detailed information can be found on the Copyright, Credit and Citations Guidelines page on our website. If you have a question about who owns the copyright for an item, you may request clarification by contacting us through the Ask Us! form.

Physical Characteristics and Technical Requirements

For preservation reasons, original analog and digital media may not be read or played back in the reading room. Users may visually inspect physical media but may not remove it from its enclosure. All analog audiovisual media must be digitized to preservation-quality standards prior to use. Audiovisual digitization requests are processed by an approved third-party vendor. Please note, the transfer time required can be as little as several weeks to as long as several months and there may be financial costs associated with the process. Requests should be directed through the Ask Us Form.

This collection contains materials acquired from an Apple iMac desktop computer and other unknown desktop computers. Researchers are responsible for meeting the technical requirements needed to access these materials, including any and all hardware and software.

Credit this material:

Subseries 4: Legal Cases; Association on American Indian Affairs Records, MC147, Public Policy Papers, Department of Special Collections, Princeton University Library

Location:
Seeley G. Mudd Manuscript Library
65 Olden Street
Princeton, NJ 08540, USA
(609) 258-6345
Storage Note:
  • Mudd Manuscript Library (mudd): Boxes 328-362; 551