Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/19pdf/18-9526_9okb.pdf
Page Number: 58

Cite as:  591 U. S. ____ (2020) 

13 

ROBERTS, C. J., dissenting 

The Court finally resorts to torching strawmen.  No one 
relying  on  our  precedents  contends  that  “practical  ad-
vantages” require “ignoring the written law.”  Ante, at 27. 
No one claims a State has “authority to reduce federal res-
ervations.”  Ante, at 7.  No one says the role of courts is to
“sav[e] the political branches” from “embarrassment.”  Ibid. 
No  one  argues  that  courts  can  “adjust[ ]”  reservation  bor-
ders.  Ibid.  Such notions have nothing to do with our prec-
edents.  What our precedents do provide is the settled ap-
proach for determining whether Congress disestablished a
reservation,  and  the  Court  starkly  departs  from  that  ap-
proach here. 

III 
Applied properly, our precedents demonstrate that Con-
gress  disestablished  any  reservation  possessed  by  the
Creek Nation through a relentless series of statutes leading 
up to Oklahoma statehood. 

A 
The statutory texts are the “most probative evidence” of 
congressional intent.  Parker, 577 U. S., at ___ (slip op., at 
5) (quoting Hagen, 510 U. S., at 411).  The Court appropri-
ately examines the Original Creek Agreement of 1901 and 
a subsequent statute for language of disestablishment, such
as  “cession,”  “abolish[ing]”  the  reservation,  “restor[ing]”
land to the “public domain,” or an “unconditional commit-
ment”  to  “compensate”  the  Tribe.  Ante,  at  8–12  (internal
quotation marks omitted).  But that is only the beginning 

—————— 
that Parker merely concluded that the evidence cited by the parties pro-
vided  a  “mixed  record  of  subsequent  treatment”  that  did  not  move  the 
needle either way.  Ibid. (internal quotation marks omitted).  Parker did 
not silently overturn our precedents requiring us to consider—and accord 
“weight”  to—subsequent  evidence  that  plainly  favors,  or  undermines, 
disestablishment.    Rosebud  Sioux  Tribe  v.  Kneip,  430  U. S.  584,  604 
(1977); see supra, at 6–9.