Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/20pdf/20-543_3e04.pdf
Page Number: 18.0

Cite as:  594 U. S. ____ (2021) 

15 

Opinion of the Court 

Respondents  next  rely  on  sources  that  postdate  ISDA.
Ordinarily,  however,  this  Court  reads  statutory  language 
as a term of art only when the language was used in that 
way at the time of the statute’s adoption.  See Food Market-
ing  Institute  v.  Argus  Leader  Media,  588  U. S.  ___,  ___ 
(2019) (slip op., at 10) (rejecting a term-of-art reading where
the  parties  “mustered  no  evidence  that  the  terms  of ”  the 
statute carried a “specialized common law meaning . . . at 
the time of their adoption”).  In relying on sources postdat-
ing  ISDA,  respondents  must  show  not  only  that  the  lan-
guage  of  the  recognized-as-eligible  clause  later  became  a 
term  of  art,  but  also  that  this  term-of-art  understanding
should be backdated to ISDA’s passage in 1975.  They can-
not make that showing.

Respondents  lean  most  heavily  on  the  Federally  Recog-
nized Indian Tribe List Act of 1994 (List Act), enacted al-
most  20  years  after  ISDA.  See  25  U. S. C.  §§5130,  5131. 
The List Act requires the Secretary of the Interior to pub-
lish an annual list of “all Indian tribes which the Secretary 
recognizes to be eligible for the special programs and ser-
vices provided by the United States to Indians because of 
their status as Indians.”  §5131(a).  According to respond-
ents, ANCs’ absence from the Secretary’s list confirms that
they are not “eligible for the special programs and services 
provided by the United States to Indians because of their 

—————— 
to the realization of self-government’ ” (citing 25 U. S. C. §5301)).  As al-
ready  explained,  however,  supra,  at  10–11,  allowing  ANCs  to  contract 
under  ISDA,  notwithstanding  their  lack  of  political  recognition,  is  en-
tirely consistent with that statute’s stated objective of “establish[ing] . . . 
a meaningful Indian self-determination policy.”  §5301(b).  Congress also
designed ANCSA to be “in conformity with the real economic and social
needs of Natives” and to facilitate “maximum participation by Natives in 
decisions  affecting  their  rights  and  property.”    43  U. S. C.  §1601(b). 
ANCs are the vehicles Congress created to further that policy of self-de-
termination.  Accord, S. Conf. Rep. No. 92–581, p. 37 (1971) (“[T]he cre-
ation of Regional and Village Corporations” are part of “a policy of self-
determination on the part of the Alaska Native people”).