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Page Number: 76.0

34 

HAALAND v. BRACKEEN 

GORSUCH, J., concurring 

developments.  This Court itself has acknowledged that its
plenary-power cases embodied a “trend . . . away from the
idea of inherent Indian sovereignty as a bar to state juris-
diction.”  Id., at 172, and n. 7. 

It is no coincidence either that this Court’s plenary-power
jurisprudence emerged in the same era as Indian boarding 
schools and other assimilationist policies.  See D. Moore & 
M.  Steele,  Revitalizing  Tribal  Sovereignty  in  Treatymak-
ing, 97 N. Y. U. L. Rev. 137, 142 (2022).  Rather, “[f]ederal
bureaucratic  control  over  Indian  leadership  and  govern-
ments ran parallel to the government’s control over Indian 
children” during this period.  Fletcher & Singel 930.  Indian 
boarding  schools  and  other  intrusive  “federal  educational 
programs . . . could not have been implemented without fed-
eral control of reservation governance.”  Ibid.  Nor could any
of  these  federal  intrusions  on  internal  tribal  affairs  have 
been  possible  without  this  Court’s  plenary-power  misad-
venture. 

I do not mean to overstate the point.  Even in the heyday 
of the plenary-power theory, this Court never doubted that
Tribes retain a variety of self-government powers.  It has 
always  acknowledged  that  Tribes  are  “a  separate  people,
with the power of regulating their internal and social rela-
tions.”  Kagama, 118 U. S., at 381–382.  They may “make 
their own substantive law in internal matters.”  Martinez, 
436 U. S., at 55.  They may define their own membership. 
Roff, 168 U. S., at 222.  They may set probate rules of their 
choice.  Jones v. Meehan, 175 U. S. 1, 29 (1899).  And—es-
pecially relevant here—they may handle their own family-
law matters, Fisher v. District Court of Sixteenth Judicial 
Dist. of Mont., 424 U. S. 382, 387 (1976) (per curiam), and
domestic disputes, United States v. Quiver, 241 U. S. 602, 
605 (1916).  But for a  period at least, this Court let itself 
drift  from  the  “basic  policy  of  Worcester,”  and  with  it  the  
Constitution’s  promise  of  tribal  sovereignty.  Williams  v. 
Lee, 358 U. S. 217, 219 (1959).