Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/19pdf/18-9526_9okb.pdf
Page Number: 22

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

19 

Opinion of the Court 

“obvious practical advantages.”  Id., at 472, n. 13, 471. 

Out of context, statements like these might suggest his-
torical practices or current demographics can suffice to dis-
establish or diminish reservations in the way Oklahoma en-
visions.  But, in the end, Solem itself found these kinds of 
arguments provided “no help” in resolving the dispute be-
fore  it.  Id.,  at  478.  Notably,  too,  Solem  suggested  that
whatever utility historical practice or demographics might 
have was “demonstrated” by this Court’s earlier decision in 
Rosebud  Sioux  Tribe  v.  Kneip,  430  U. S.  584  (1977).    See 
Solem, 465 U. S., at 470, n. 10.  And Rosebud Sioux hardly
endorsed the use of such sources to find disestablishment. 
Instead, based on the statute at issue there, the Court came 
“to the firm conclusion that congressional intent” was to di-
minish the reservation in question.  430 U. S., at 603.  At 
that point, the Tribe sought to cast doubt on the clear im-
port of the text by citing subsequent historical events—and 
the Court rejected the Tribe’s argument exactly because this 
kind of evidence could not overcome congressional intent as
expressed in a statute.  Id., at 604–605. 

This Court has already sought to clarify that extratextual
considerations  hardly  supply  the  blank  check  Oklahoma 
supposes.  In Parker, for example, we explained that “[e]vi-
dence of the subsequent treatment of the disputed land . . . 
has ‘limited interpretive value.’ ”  577 U. S., at ___ (slip op., 
at 11) (quoting South Dakota v. Yankton Sioux Tribe, 522 
U. S. 329, 355 (1998)).8  Yankton Sioux called it the “least 

—————— 

8 The dissent suggests Parker meant to say only that evidence of sub-
sequent treatment had limited interpretative value “in that case.”  Post, 
at 12.  But the dissent includes just a snippet of the relevant passage.
Read in full, there is little room to doubt Parker invoked a general rule: 
“This subsequent demographic history cannot overcome our conclusion 
that Congress did not intend to diminish the reservation in 1882. And it
is not our rule to ‘rewrite’ the 1882 Act in light of this subsequent demo-
graphic history.  DeCoteau, 420 U. S., at 447.  After all, evidence of the 
changing  demographics  of  disputed  land  is  ‘the  least  compelling’  evi-