Court Opinion

ID: 9687480
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-24 16:30:15.541165+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:18:27.836125
License: Public Domain

RANDALL, Judge
(dissenting).
I respectfully dissent. Appellant Buddie Greene is in all respects an American citizen, a resident of Aitkin County, Minnesota and a citizen of the State of Minnesota. She is part Native American and has enough blood quantum to be enrolled in the Minnesota Chippewa Tribe. Her home reservation is Leech Lake. She does not live on the reservation but rather lives in Aitkin. As the majority sets out, there is a voluntary agreement between the Minnesota Department of Human Services and the Minnesota Chippewa Tribe (MCT) whereby the Minnesota Department of Human Services agrees to provide the Minnesota Family Investment Program (MFIP) to enrolled members of six northern Minnesota Ojibwe reservations (there are seven Ojibwe reservations in northern Minnesota; Red Lake is not a member if the MCT and is not a signatory to this agreement).
MFIP is a public assistance plan for low income families with children and is not restricted to Minnesota Native Americans nor does it discriminate against Minnesota Native Americans. It is simply open to Minnesota families qualified by residence and low income levels.
There is nothing in the MFIP regarding being race-based. If there were, I suspect the politically correct among us, lay people and politicians, would elbow each other off the pulpit and decry such a shameful thing. Nor do you have to belong to the MCT, even if you are a Native American, *498to receive services that you otherwise qualify for. For instance, you might be an Ojibwe but not enrolled in any of the signatory tribes. You might be a Native American member of any of the other numerous tribes not enrolled in the MCT. Your right to receive MFIP services from Aitkin County would simply turn on your county residence and the income level of you and your children.
The agreement is an idea of the Minnesota Department of Human Services and the MCT. That agreement is not mandated by the Bureau of Indian Affairs or the federal government or any Minnesota state statute that I know of.
Appellant simply wants to qualify for the MFIP services as a bona fide member of Aitkin County, Minnesota and to avail herself of the same rights that any resident of Aitkin County has. She does not wish to go through the MCT. For refusing to go through the MCT, she was denied benefits she was otherwise entitled to receive, to help to raise her child. The first hearing was before an administrative referee who found in appellant’s favor, and held that while she could apply through the MCT, she did not have to as she was otherwise eligible. Specifically, Referee Moore stated:
While the statute imposes a duty upon the country to make referrals to tribal employment services when a participant is deemed eligible, there is no requirement that an eligible participant utilize that service simply because they are eligible. Likewise, the fact that the tribal employment services programs cannot refuse to provide eligible participants services, does not in turn create a requirement that an eligible participant utilize those services. The appellant, like any other citizen of Aitkin County, should be able to access county employment services.
Referee Moore was correct. I agree with Referee Moore and appellant’s attorney who argues that the law requires a referral but does not strip applicants like appellant of their rights as a county resident if they wish to forgo their tribal preferences and deal directly with the county.
As appellant argues, Minn.Stat. § 256J.645, subd. 4 (2006), states that “Indian tribal members receiving MFIP benefits and residing in the Service area of an Indian tribe operating employment services under an agreement with the commissioner must be referred by county agencies in the service area to the Indian tribe for employment services.” There is a mandatory “referral” but there is no statement that ineligible enrollees become ineligible if they participate directly with the county of their residence.
The goal of allowing Indian tribes to help their enrolled members is accomplished by this mandatory referral. The majority of eligible Native Americans make use of that preference. The goal of helping tribes help their members cannot subvert the right of a Minnesota citizen to pass up a race-based preference and simply deal with their county and their state on the basis of “I’m an independent human being and a resident and this service is open to me.” For instance, there are affirmative type scholarships and grants available to those who are in need and belong to a particular racial/ethnic background. But they are not excluded, from applying for, and competing for “colorblind” scholarships and grants based exclusively on need and their academic or athletic prowess. National Merit Scholarships are open to all, while at the same time there may be scholarships available for black, Hispanic, and Native American children that are not open to Caucasians. You can have dual applications if you want. What we do not *499have is a law that says minority students cannot apply for the same state access and benefits that Caucasian students can apply for, but rather are restricted to racial/ethnic avenues. Yet respondents argue that is so for appellant. Respondents’ briefs argue the proposition that appellant is restricted to her “tribal track” and is barred from applying directly to the county of her residence.
Respondents in this case, never mention and never come near Brown v. Bd. of Educ., 347 U.S. 483, 74 S.Ct. 686, 98 L.Ed. 873 (1954). You see, what we have here are respondents pushing for “separate but equal” treatment for enrolled members of MCT, and the majority reiterating “separate but equal” under the guise of “helping” tribes help their members. Appellant Buddie Greene wishes to be treated as a citizen of Minnesota and the United States. She wishes to forgo any preference she might have as a member of a Native American tribe. I suggest that neither Aitkin County nor the State of Minnesota can forbid her to do that.
In Morton v. Mancan, the Supreme Court conveniently sidestepped its reasoning in Brown. 417 U.S. 535, 94 S.Ct. 2474, 41 L.Ed.2d 290 (1974). In upholding a federal law that provided a preference for qualified Indians, the Court held that favoring American Indians is not race-based, but “political.” Id. at 553 n. 24, 94 S.Ct. at 2484 n. 24. The illogic is inescapable.
As I have previously noted:
If that were the case, those in Congress who were bitterly opposed to Brown v. Board of Education would have thought of the simple expedient of calling black Americans a political class, rather than a race-based class, and merrily continued on their way with de facto segregation. If this country is to meaningfully deal with the consuming problem of race and race bias, we have to be smarter than that; we have to be more honest than that.
Cohen v. Little Six, Inc., 543 N.W.2d 376, 402 (Minn.App.1996) (Randall, J., dissenting), affirmed 561 N.W.2d 889 (Minn.1997).2
Since 1924, the Indians of our state have been, and continue to be, Minnesotans and U.S. citizens under the laws of this country. Yet, even with the Supreme Court’s strong denunciation of government action that places distinctions on disparate classes of citizens, we carry on with the notion of separate but equal for MCT Indians under the guise of preference.
As U.S. citizens, Indians enjoy the same guarantees of citizenship as their fellow Americans. In recognizing appellant Bud-die Greene as a tribal member, instead of an American citizen and a county resident, we ignore her ability and right to make choices available to all citizens.
A tribe is not a living, breathing person endowed with the protection of the United States Constitution, its Bill of Rights, and the Minnesota Constitution. The tribe is a governmental entity like Hennepin or Ramsey County, or Aitkin County, or the City of Aitkin. Municipalities are not the individuals protected by the constitution. The residents of those municipalities are.
Minnesota’s eleven Indian tribes, seven Ojibwe and four Dakota Sioux, are municipal governments. Many tend to be incorporated, including some in Delaware. If you want to call “the tribe” a political class, that would be in keeping with calling Hennepin County or Ramsey County a *500political entity/political class. No harm is done to the language by so doing. But, the residents of Hennepin and Ramsey County are not a political entity or a political class. They are human beings divided by long recognized divisions of race and ethnic origin. The same is true for enrolled Indian people. You can say they are members of a municipal-like government and that that government is a political entity; but the individual members are, like residents of Hennepin and Ramsey County, human being with racial/ethnic origins and they have the rights, as all citizens, not to be boxed into a separate but equal track.
In an oral argument, the attorney for the State of Minnesota Department of Human Services, with candor (but probably not intentional) exactly stated respondents’ reliance on “separate but equal.” The precise argument was that the MCT and the Leech Lake Band had an infrastructure in place, and government jobs and people working in place, whose jobs consisted of handling the referrals from Aitkin County for MFIP services. If people like appellant were given the option of dealing directly with her county of residence and if enough people chose to do so, “there would not be enough economic activity to justify the tribe’s infrastructure and some people might have to be laid off’! This argument was advanced by respondents with a certain amount of indignation. That happens to be what happened after the Brown decision. Many segregated, all black schools closed in time, and when the students were assimilated in one school or the other, not all the previously paid teachers, vice-principals, principals, and superintendents automatically got new jobs in the new integrated system. Right today, in towns in Minnesota with declining enrollment, people moving out of town are exercising Minnesota’s long standing principle of school choice and, therefore, cutting a certain amount of teaching jobs.
If respondents are honest, and not hypocritical, they would have to make this argument if enough Indian children exercised their right to go to local public grade schools and high schools. Many Indian parents take advantage of this option. It is common on the reservations when the reservation grade or high schools are not comparable to the quality of local public schools. Respondents always have the option of using their own tribal schools if they have them, or using their local school district’s public grade schools and high schools. On those reservations where the quality of the public school is thought by parents to be comparable to the local public school district, many parents keep their children in the reservation school. Even then, some parents exercise their right to use the local school district. Minnesota has certified grade schools and high schools (even some Head Start and kindergartens) for reservation members. But it is always an option and a free choice. If too many Indian parents chose local public schools for their children, then the local reservation schools would have to lay off teachers, administrators, janitors and superintendents. That will happen. Respondents will be there in the other corner trying to make an arrangement to force (as here) residents of tribes to go to reservation schools. That is, if they are honest, and not hypocritical. I suspect they would lose that case as they should lose this one.
Brown v. Bd. of Educ. centered on an all black school. There was not an accompanying hue and cry about all Hispanic schools, all Asian schools, or all Native American schools. But no one has seriously challenged assimilation with the narrow argument that Brown forbids de facto segregation against blacks, and since it did not specifically mention Hispanics, Asians, *501and Native Americans, that must have been an intentional oversight, and, therefore, those racial/ethnic groups can continue to be forced into separate public schools and public welfare as long as schools and welfare are “bless my soul!” — equal.
Identified members of MCT are treated differently under the statute. The majority ducks strict scrutiny and goes along with the shibboleth that “Indian” is a political classification, not racial. Democrat and Republican are political classes! Caucasian, Black, Asian, Native American and Hispanic are racial/ethnic. As Casey Stengel said, “You can look it up!” Take a look at the next census from the United States of America and the racial/ethnic boxes of which you are asked to check. Caucasian, Black, Asian, Pacific Rim, American Indian, Alaskan Indian, Hispanic, etc. will all have boxes. “Democrat” and “Republican” will not have little boxes to check. They are political classifications, not racial or ethnic.
All 652 federally recognized tribes work off of blood quantum. Blood quantum is not “political.” Blood quantum is racial. The most commonly used benchmark for enrollment is 25%. Tribes are free to increase or decrease that percentage for their own standards of enrollment. Because of marriage outside the tribe, many tribes today, in danger of declining enrollment, utilize “NBQ.” That means, “no blood quantum.” It really does not mean “no blood quantum”; it is simply shorthand for eliminating the need for a specific percentage of blood quantum. The tribes, utilizing “no blood quantum”, pick a time period back in history, and if you are a lineal descendant of any enrolled member at that time, you may be eligible to enroll. That means 1/8, 1/16, 1/32, or 1/64 could count. That bears an eerie resemblance to an old Louisiana statute that one could be classified “Negro” and subjected that race to the Jim Crow laws of that day. See La.Rev.Stat. Ann. § 42:267 (1982) (repealed 1983). Until 1970, a Louisiana statute had embraced the one drop rule, defining a Negro as anyone with a “trace of black ancestry.” See Sunseri v. Cassagne, 195 La. 19, 196 So. 7, 7 (1940). This law was challenged in court a number of times from the 1920s on, including an unsuccessful attempt in 1957 by boxer Ralph Dupas, who asked to be declared white so that a law banning “interracial sports” (since repealed) would not prevent him from boxing in the state. State ex rel. Dupas v. City of New Orleans, 240 La. 820, 125 So.2d 375, 376 (1960). In 1970 a lawsuit was brought on behalf of a child whose ancestry was allegedly only one two-hundred-fifty-sixth black, and the legislature revised its law. See La.Rev.Stat. Ann. § 42:267. The 1970 Louisiana statute defined a black as someone whose ancestry is more than one thirty-second black. Id. Adverse publicity about this law was widely disseminated during the Phipps trial in 1983, filed as Jane Doe v. State of Louisiana. See 479 So.2d 369 (La.App. 4 Cir.1985). However, the new statute in 1983 did not retroactively abolish the “traceable amount rule” (the one drop rule), as demonstrated by the outcomes when the Phipps decision was appealed to higher courts in 1985 and 1985.3
Blood quantum as a race-based idea, an ethnic-based idea, and the fight against it, as a justification to treat citizens differently, was the heart of Brown v. Bd. of Edue. and all the battles before Brown and all the fights for decades after Brown.
*502Put another way, we can recognize “preferences.” Certain affirmative actions have passed all constitutional tests at the state and federal levels. Public policy states those with bona fide needs can be a foundation for preferences. Just being poor can become a valuable preference when competing for grants and scholarships with someone with similar grades but “no need.” But the reverse of legitimate preferences for racial/ethnic groups is discrimination if they want to voluntarily forgo a preference and simply apply on the basis of need (as appellant here in Aitkin County), and are prevented from doing so, because of race, as respondents argue should be the case.
Appellant can say, “I know I could be an Indian and track down some preferential treatment, but I’m tired. I don’t want to deal with tribal government for today. I just want to be a resident of Aitkin County and a citizen of the state of Minnesota and the United States of America.”
I would like to state that not only is that the case, but under the compelling, unalterable, and not unclear mandate of Brown v. Bd. ofEduc., respondents’ hydra-headed assault on the doctrine that separate but equal is inherently unconstitutional has to be recognized. Like Perseus and the Gorgon, if only through a mirror, it has to be slain. I dissent. I would have affirmed the administrative referee.

. As I have previously acknowledged, I cited Mancan in reaching the result in Kmeth. Although I still conclude that the result reached in Krueth was just and equitable, I no longer subscribe to the reasoning behind the decision.

. James Gill, Lords of Misrvde: Mardi Gras and the Politics of Race in New Orleans, 217 (University Press of Mississippi 1997)