Self-Determination (1961-Present) II::

Indian Civil Rights Act (1968)

The ICRA permitted states to extend jurisdiction over Indian lands, but only with the consent of affected tribes. It also extended many of the Bill of Rights provisions to individual tribal members. This gave Indians, for the first time, many of the same constitutional rights that had been conferred upon all other American citizens, but it also limited the power of tribal governments in favour of individual Indian rights, and exerted pressure on tribal governments to abide by the principles of judicial review, due process, and equal protection.

Proponents hailed the bill as being a long-overdue acknowledgement of basic Indian individual rights, and their rights to constitutional protection against the often "arbitrary and capricious actions of tribal governments" (Shattuck & Norgren 1991:1970),¹ who often sought to restrict basic civil rights.

Criticism levelled at the ICRA argued that it intruded too much into the independence of tribal governments, and that it ignored those bills of rights that some tribes had already incorporated into their own tribal constitutions. The most vociferous critics claimed that the Bill of Rights favours the individualistic ethic of the United States over and above, and therefore in direct conflict with, the communal ethic of tribes.

Notes::

• 1 - Petra T. Shattuck and Jill Norgren. 1991. Partial Justice: Federal Indian Law in a Liberal Constitutional System. New York: Berg.