Members Only? Designing Citizenship Requirements for Indian Nations

Indian nations' constitutional reform efforts encounter some of their most paralyzing conflicts over criteria for membership. Three years ago, I initiated a Tribal Legal Development Clinic at UCLA, whose purpose has been to assist Indian nations in building their legal infrastructures. This Clinic has provided free consulting and drafting services to Indian nations seeking to establish or modify tribal constitutions, codes, or justice systems. As the Clinic embarked on several constitution drafting and revision projects, controversies over membership -- or citizenship as we preferred to call it -- readily and regularly went from negotiable differences among tribal participants to heated stalemate or irresolvable conundrum...