Opinion ID: 780220
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: Appropriateness of Federal Remedy

Text: 30 Finally, the fourth Cort factor also weighs against a holding that there is a private right of action for a disappointed job applicant. Again, this analysis rests on the proposition that most potential defendants in an action under § 450e would be Indians or Indian organizations and that Congress fully expected that to be the case. 31 In Santa Clara Pueblo, the Supreme Court analyzed 25 U.S.C. § 1302(8), which prohibits an Indian tribe in exercising powers of self-governance from deny[ing] to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection its laws or depriv[ing] any person of liberty or property without due process of law. The issue for decision was whether § 1302(8) created a private right of action for its enforcement. Relying heavily on the fourth Cort factor, the Court concluded that, in the face of congressional silence on the matter, enforcement of the statute should be left to the tribes. Santa Clara Pueblo, 436 U.S. at 71-72, 98 S.Ct. 1670. The Court 32 recognized that the tribes remain quasi-sovereign nations which, by government structure, culture, and source of sovereignty are in many ways foreign to the constitutional institutions of the federal and state governments.... [E]fforts by the federal judiciary to apply the statutory prohibitions of § 1302 in a civil context may substantially interfere with a tribe's ability to maintain itself as a culturally and politically distinct entity. 33 Id. Therefore, although federal law governs Indian affairs, the role of courts in adjusting relations between and among tribes and their members ... [is] restrained. Id. at 72, 98 S.Ct. 1670. 2 34 As in Santa Clara Pueblo, Congress has not expressly permitted a private action against an Indian or Indian tribe. In view of Congress' overarching desire to augment tribal autonomy through the ISDEAA, the fourth Cort factor does not support the implication of a private right of action under 25 U.S.C. § 450e.