mexico i hope that i find you well and safe during this very difficult time thank you and also to my dear friend david gomez i hope you are well and safe as well my friend today we are addressing the question of whether or not the district court properly granted summary judgment in a case involving the question of whether shiprock associated schools incorporated is in the indian tribe it is the position of the plaintiff that it is not an indian tribe for the purpose of the title seven exemption we acknowledge from the get go that whether or not and then it is an indian tribe generally depends on the statute and statutory history that is unique to any particular situation you can be an indian tribe for one purpose and not for another purpose so we are cautious to try to have realized this from a title seven perspective and client in the complaint we asserted pregnancy discrimination specifically ok ok you're welcome the question of whether or not a school is an indian tribe is is is a very complicated question in our opinion and the reason for that is the reality is that there is a hodgepodge of regulations that applied to these schools there is a in our opinion extensive federal involvement in these schools and from our perspective of a minimum of tribal involvement for shiprock associated schools what we knowledge that it was designated as a tribal organization by the navajo tribal council which seems to cut in favor of the apple eat there is also a reauthorization process that the navajo nation conducts which again seems to cut in favor of the apple e however the reauthorization product processed by the navajo tribe according to the facts that we submitted that were undisputed is once every ten years which we contend is a very loose  regulation by the tribe whereas there are many many federal controls that are in place in these schools on an ongoing and regular basis a lot of those controls stem from the fact that the school receives federal funding and the federal government maintains control over the federal funding which we believe is relevant in this context in their brief the aptly kind of dismissed and said century well of course the federal government maintains control over their money well yeah but the purpose of determining whether they're a school in our opinion whether the school is an indian tribe or not in our pinion cuts really down to the question of who is controlling the sanity in our position if the federal government is the real controller here if this is really an operation of the federal government and the tribe is not controlling it then then it should not be designated as a indian tribe yes i suppose that that is true in the sense that they can designate whether you're a tribal organization for the purpose of being eligible there's not a no good i'm sorry  have to be made by both the director of the b i am that the navajo nation vote i mean it's an error to say it's only a tribal does it nation because there are regulations about when the director can and can't determine the schools eligible for tribally controlled schools it's that it has only a very loose involved it originally designate to this a tribe organization and then reauthorized once every ten years once a decade where the b s a maintains constant control in the form of the money the money to the granting of my understanding that i thought there was some effort to change that so that they might actually obtain or funds directly from b i g but that didn't happen section seven of our statement of facts judge we as we cited the  that not right to protect defend the laws and government of the novel nation why doesn't that create a connection that is pretty tight with the trauma i mean they're not their sworn oath to uphold the laws of the nation i will agree with you that it creates a connection i do not agree that it connects connection that is tight and the reason sir is the accountability system that is put in place because the now one nation only reviews the school once every ten years there really is very little oversight by the navajo nation as to what's going on with the school i mean once a decade is it's not very much i mean you think about ten years ago how different novel nation has a procedure to remove or members that they treat him as any other elect elected officials and they're subject to recall if under navajo law well then the ten years really doesn't that does not fully encompass the scope of their responsibility or control of the border elite we contend so we contend that the school board itself has only marginal control over the school that the director contain continue the director of the b i e e and his employees can on a continuing basis have extensive control over the school that looks sure i'm not trying to contend that the tribe has no involvement here i'm trying i'm simply trying to say that the federal government's control is more significant farmwork and significant because of the budgetary issues that are at stake there they limit what you can do with the money that limit how you can and that's the money they apply to wage and  labor standards if you're going to hire construction employees with wage lets that are set by the united states department of labor i mean the control of the con the ongoing basis the involvement of the is so extensive that our position is that the tribal involvement is more in name and more symbolic than it is actual and that's where we believe the district court erred the district court think will receive quite a bit of money from the federal government or at least for but my question just assume that they do and like any federal grant the let's assume that the national endowment of the arts or whoever the governing body from the federal government is puts all sorts of conditions on the recipients of the several funding does that make the private entity who may be the holden to the federal government for let's say hypothetically eighty five percent or ninety percent or one percent of its funding does that make them a a federal in a d as opposed to a so they have nonprofit status order institution no sir i don't believe that it does but if your situation because we're dealing with indian tribes we're dealing with a long history of the federal responsibility to educate indian children i think i think it goes without saying that the federal government assumed as it settled its treaties with  conducted the treaty responsibilities of the navajo nation the question in this case is did the tribal control schools act make one of these schools and indian tribes for the purpose of title seven which is where i think you analogy doesn't fit within the scheme i'm not trying to say that that anybody who gets funds becomes a federal entity i'm saying set shiprock associated schools is not an indian tribe because the federal government maintains such incredible control over how they do their their activities that that call it in the indian tribe is to elevate form over substance so that's the position we're taking and i see i'm down to two minutes so i'm going to if i can retain those two minutes for and we also have a nd one at the appellate index that eighty eight dollars st off i'd like to point off that neither of these are for ten years although  associated schools is so pervasive that it even dictates the number of days that a school board president must be a school board members to have before before they can have a meeting going back to the these authorizations that come from the navajo nation board of education through the department getting education we have extensive requirements that the school must have must comply or st off we upon standard conditions which it has attached that the navajo nation places on navajo nation tribal organizations which are authorized to operate be any funded education and education related programs and our residential programs education he operates schools and it also pays for schools were in a nd class were what's called a grand scale because we receive grants and to be trying to control schools act some of the regulations and controls that mr jordan's referring to are the b i e control schools which are entirely separate institution which sassy is not we are here on try to really control school and to try to really control schools act ok that's an important one side being tribally control schools that is entirely subject to the laws of the navajo nation including the issue she lost as well as the education the election laws that apply to its board members who are not one nation travel officials and the regulations that mr jordan was raising with respect are teacher grievances curricula civil rights and all as sort of all those sorts of issues that are under the regulations that relate to  we can't get our foot in a door without the approval of the tribe and i said as i said here we have to approvals within within a ten year period it is not the case where the nation approves you and then lets you wander around for ten years without any supervision the navajo nation is is completely on the schools all the time let me let me clarify one thing if i may as relates to the importance of the extent of control i mean would would is it a point of distinction let's say that sassy had just been authorized by the navajo nation to to essentially receive the funds from the b i e and to run the schools and then the navajo nation it's actually left them at to their own devices would they still have a case for being an indian tribe just jest by virtue of the authorisation yes your honor because in order to operate history as a bureau funded school with the authorization  i understand what the circumstances here are and other words that is what the tree the navajo nation has chosen to do i'm just trying to understand how important that control which you posit to be an important factor here it is a factor i'm just trying to to disaggregate that a little bit or a separate that from the question of authorization itself is authorization it's self anough to allow for a entity to be a trot in other words if they get if you did not have all of the controls that the navajo code puts in place relative to sassy would you still have an argument for saying that you're an indian organisation and that is completely separate from the issue of the control that the man the whole nation would have under its own laws ok let me stop you there so so yes at that point in this discussion if they'd gotten that approval they were now going to be able to see if you know the funds in the trial the tribe we control schools and at that point let's a say that the navajo nation left them to to their own devices in terms of how they went about their school system i know that's not your position that that's happened here let's assume that it happened at that juncture we used to be still be situated to say we have the authorisation we are the tribal designated school system therefore element of control and yelena control which is present here in this case well that's what i thought i just witnessed what your position was on that so you're saying the control doesn't matter and but you've got the control we have more control than we didn't involve of course an educational setting and i know that the district court case you want to rely on does but i i wonder about the language in deal which in order to interpret this definition that we're all trying to interpret doesn't have there is no definition basically of in indian tribes they look for the purpose of the exception and they said the whole purpose was to promote the ability of sovereign indian tribes to control own economic enterprise and then in that case they found that that particular council of tribes was the purpose was to obtain the greatest possible benefit from one of the inherently valuable economic assets that they possess energy resources and i'm wondering you know do we just accept the fact that the said u k tional setting somehow is within that purpose of the exception which about i'm asking about the whole point of the purpose and i think that what contributions from center mind in south dakota who introduced the mail talking about this being about economic enterprises well i want to crawl and that's what i'm asking  how does this and we make this about economic enterprises well actually you know economic in a crisis so is only part of what what the senator was talking about if you if you reach a deal for for that purpose yeah you could say well it's is only limited economic purposes but if you read the senator's actual words that are in the case that he's talking about all the the activities use talking  it's within the purpose i would say that education is probably you know if you want to use probably more of it well it's hard to say you know what's important education economics those sorts of things  but you know i think that education has as mr jordan pointed out is a very crucial aspect of what governments do for people that are in in the are trying to control schools that we are tearing out trust jordan you had an additional ten seconds and then will will give you so yet two minutes left kevin could you put on there for him three minutes and you definitely do not need to take it you don't want to but you have  schools and it lists all the controls that are still in place for tribal controls ex cool's which include the things i mentioned my argument audit financial standards what you can spend money on but you can't spend money on wage limitations for construction workers wages that are set by the united states department of labor i am not at the moment talking about be a controlled schools i'm talking about the privately controlled schools so that's the st thing i wanted to clarify the nd thing i want to clarify is this the assertion by the apple e that there is no tenure process this for reauthorization and we got that directly from their employee i asked the question the deposition so as long as shiprock associates schools terms in these fairly routine reports you understand the process will move to a simplified process a reauthorization for ten years answer yes so our position continues to be that yes they have to tribes own economic enterprises the tribal governments own operations and a tribal controlled xcor and the reason it's a big difference is because they were talking about things that originated from the tribe the tribal governments own activities its government to what is the schools come from a long history a federal education not tribal education and in that history the government has slowly been handing over education to the tribes but only it really gives up so much control out of that and it retains so much control that's what makes it different to me that i wasn't can't the language until be ready to talk about i will agree that education is essential to economic empowerment as as a general concept what i'm arguing is that the history of this is different and a significant because this is a program where the federal government has slowly been giving over control of its own schools to the tribe so long a certain federal controls are maintained and today the federal government maintains a significant level of control to this day all right thank you coun