A Supreme Court Ruling Cut This State in Half | Facts Matter
Facts Matter
The Epoch Times
4.9 • 1.3K Ratings
🗓️ 23 January 2025
⏱️ 27 minutes
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Summary
Back in the summer of 2020, amidst all the news regarding COVID-19, the lockdowns, the outbreaks, the Black Lives Matter protests and riots, and the presidential election, the Supreme Court issued a monumental ruling that went completely under the radar.
It went unnoticed by so many because of everything else that was happening at the time.
However, the ruling was truly monumental because it effectively cut Oklahoma’s claim to the land in the state in half.
In 1830, President Andrew Jackson signed a treaty that established an area encompassing almost the entire eastern half of present-day Oklahoma as a Native American reservation.
But over the past 190 years, different laws and treaties have effectively chipped away at those lands—and the claims that Native Americans have to them.
That all changed in 2020, however, when the U.S. Supreme Court determined that the laws and treaties passed in the past 200 years have not disestablished these reservations and that the Native Americans who live there still have certain rights because of their unique status on those lands.
Furthermore, the Supreme Court ruling confirmed that the Native American citizens residing on these reservations no longer fall under the jurisdiction of Oklahoma state and local police but rather under the purview of local tribal police and the federal government.
The reason that this matters for people outside of Oklahoma is that this ruling also sets a precedent that other Native American tribes across the United States could use to claw back land that was promised to them by treaties signed hundreds of years ago.
So let’s go through the details of this case—and tease out the implications it could have for other states moving forward.
Join host Roman Balmakov on this week’s episode of “Facts Matter.”
Views expressed in this video are opinions of the host and guests and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Back in the summer of 2020, amidst all the news that was coming out about COVID, the lockdowns, the pockets of outbreaks, the BLM protests and riots across the country, the election, amidst all that, the U.S. Supreme Court issued a monumental ruling that went completely under the radar. |
| 0:18.0 | People pretty much across the board missed it because of everything else |
| 0:21.4 | that was happening at that particular time. But that ruling, it was really monumental. Because what |
| 0:27.4 | it effectively did is that it took the authority that the Oklahoma State government had over the |
| 0:32.7 | entirety of the landmass of Oklahoma, and it cut it in half. Over night, the Oklahoma State Government |
| 0:39.5 | lost the authority in half of their state. You see, back in the year 1830, President Andrew |
| 0:45.6 | Jackson signed a treaty which established an area that encompasses almost the entire eastern half |
| 0:52.5 | of present-day Oklahoma as being a Native American reservation. |
| 0:56.4 | However, as we all know, over the last 190 years, different laws have come out of Congress, |
| 1:02.0 | which have effectively chipped away at these lands, or rather the claims that the Native Americans |
| 1:07.1 | have to those lands. But that all changed in 2020 when the U.S. Supreme Court |
| 1:12.7 | officially determined that the laws and treaties that have been passed in the last roughly 200 |
| 1:18.1 | years have not this established these reservations and that the Native Americans who live there |
| 1:23.5 | still have the rights of a sovereign nation within the United States, not subject to |
| 1:28.9 | the Oklahoma state government. |
| 1:31.4 | Furthermore, the Supreme Court ruling, it also confirmed that the Native American citizens |
| 1:36.7 | residing on this reservation no longer fall under the jurisdiction of either Oklahoma |
| 1:42.0 | state or local police, but rather only to the local tribe |
| 1:45.8 | police and the federal government. And the reason that this matters for people, not just the people |
| 1:51.4 | living in Oklahoma, across the whole country, rather, is that this ruling also sets a new precedent |
| 1:56.1 | that other Native American tribes across the U.S. could use to try and claw back the land that was |
| 2:01.2 | promised in by treaties signed hundreds of years ago. And so let's go through the details of this case, |
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