"Is the Supreme Court Scared of Tribal Sovereignty?"

It’s a sucker’s bet to try to predict an outcome here, so I won’t. But the public nature of the questioning did expose how unfamiliar the majority of the justices are with Indian law and basic history. And like so many other non-Native people, their focus constantly lingered away from the American theft of Native land and abandonment of treaty rights. Gorsuch aside, the justices did not spend their limited time wondering what the ramifications of this violence have meant for generations of MCN citizens; instead, they found themselves repeatedly debating how a ruling in favor of a Native nation would affect non-Natives. It’s not a shock. This is how it’s always been. But given that these nine people are the ones entrusted with meting out justice for all of America, including Indian Country, it’s still more than a little disappointing that so little has changed.