Securing Native American Religious Freedom: The Need for Federal Law Reform

Presented on March 6, 1992

Vine Deloria, Jr., Professor, University of Colorado at Boulder

"Two recent Supreme Court decisions have created a crisis in religious freedom for Native Americans. These cases held that the first amendment does not protect tribal religious practices and referred the issue of protecting Native worship to Congress. In the view of many legal experts, the court's exclusion of traditional Indian worship from the first amendment also seriously weakened religious liberty for all Americans.

Proposed amendments to the American Indian Freedom of Religion Act (AIRFA) passed in 1978, would greatly strengthen protections for Native American religious practices. This week Native American religious and political leaders gather in Portland to testify at the hearing of the Senate Select Committee on Indian Affairs—the first step toward fashioning legislation to restore the rights of Native Americans to worship in the manner of their ancestors.

Vine Deloria, Jr., a member of the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe and a noted author, historian and Native American legal expert, will discuss the threat to Native American religious freedom, and the need for federal law reform. He will describe the need for access to sacred sites and religious sacraments important to Native American holy practices, and the proposed amendments to AIRFA.

Deloria is professor of American Indian Studies and adjunct professor of law at the University of Colorado at Boulder. Born on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in South Dakota, Deloria became the executive director of the National Congress of American Indians in 1964, and founded the Institute for the Development of Indian Law in Washington D.C. in 1971. He is the author of Custer Died For Our Sins and numerous other books. "