Melissa L Tatum

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Courses

Scholarly Contributions

Books

• Tatum, M. L., & Christensen, G. (2019). Reading American Indian Law: Foundational Principles. Cambridge University Press.
  More info

  Professor Christensen and I have been offered and have accepted a contract to prepare a book entitled "Reading American Indian Law: Foundational Principles." The book excerpts 16 law review articles identified as part of our empirical study, providing introductory material to set the stage for each except. Each excerpt is also followed by notes and comments material to provide guidance for discussion.
• Tatum, M. L., & Urbina, A. (2022). Implementing VAWA 2022’s Special Tribal Criminal Jurisdiction and TLOA’s Enhanced Sentencing Authority: Lessons from the Pascua Yaqui Tribe.
  More info

  When Congress enacted VAWA 2022, we revised and updated our earlier version, which focused on VAWA 2013. Due to time pressures, the second edition (like the first edition) did not go through a formal publisher, but it received extensive circulation in PDF format
• Tatum, M. L. (2020). Reading American Indian Law: Foundational Principles. North America (note: was published in Europe in December 2019): Cambridge University Press. doi:https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108770804
• Tatum, M. L. (2018). Indigenous Justice: New Tools, Approaches, Spaces. Palgrave McMillan.
• Tatum, M. L., White Eagle, M. L., & Beetso, C. H. (2015). Guide for Drafting or Revising Tribal Laws to Implement the Tribal Law and Order Act and the Violence Against Women Reauthorization of 2013.

Chapters

• Tatum, M. L., & Crepelle, A. (2022). Oliphant v Suquamish Tribe. In Feminist Judgments: Rewritten Criminal Law Opinions. Cambridge University Press.
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  This book is part of a series. Each chapter consists of two parts: a commentary to provide context and a rewritten version of an opinion. I am the author of the rewritten opinion and Professor Crepelle wrote the commentary.
• Tatum, M. L., & Hendry, J. (2018). Building New Traditions: Drawing Insights From Interactive Legal Culture. In Indigenous Justice: New Tools, Spaces, and Approaches(pp 22 pages/ 10,100 words). Palgrave MacMillan.
• Tatum, M. L., & Hendry, J. (2016). Constitution as Dialogue: Lessons from the American Experience. In Constitutional Recognition of Indigenous Australians: Comparative and Critical Perspectives(p. 17). Federation Press.
  More info

  The debate in Australia over whether the constitution should be amended to recognise Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples is about more than just altering a document – it is about national identity, past, present and future. The identity issues at play in Australia are more than religious or ethnic differences; Australia’s cultural plurality effectively takes the form of an asymmetric duality, that is to say, it comprises the descendants of both the Indigenous inhabitants and the European colonisers. These communities are very different politically and socially, and these differing socio-political dynamics are further complicated by Australia’s colonial legacy. Indeed, that these diverse cultures exist and persist today creates the situation of robust cultural pluralism which, along with Australia’s politico-legal monism, gives rise to the very tension that we explore throughout this chapter. It is our contention that this tension is generated by the conjunction of two historical events: in its erosion of Indigenous systems of law and governance, colonisation removed from Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples the possibility of political participation in their own governments, while their subsequent exclusion from the constitutionalisation process of federation effectively silenced their collective voice. The process of constitutional reform requires un-muting that collective voice and giving it a channel on which to speak and be heard.

Journals/Publications

• Tatum, M. L. (2019). Customary Law of Indigenous Communities: Making Space on the Global Environmental Stage. TEL, 8200 words.
• Tatum, M. L. (2019). Customary Law of Indigenous Communities: Making Space on the Global Environmental Stage. Michigan Journal of Environmental and Administrative Law, 9.
• Tatum, M. L. (2019). Customary Law of Indigenous Communities: Making Space on the Global Environmental Stage. Michigan Journal of Environmental and Administrative Law, 9(1), 29.
• Hendry, J. (2018). Justice for Native Nations: Insights from Legal Pluralism. Arizona Law Review, 60(1), 91-113.
  More info

  This Article makes the case that, despite being underused by U.S. scholars in the field of Indian and Indigenous peoples law, a legally pluralist approach can and does provide vital conceptual insights. Not only does legal pluralism supply an important framework through which to conceptualize and address existing power imbalances between Indian tribes and the federal government, but it also makes instances of interaction between these different and yet connected normative orders—or legal cultures—readily more apparent. Scholarly arguments within this research field in the United States tend to take the form of either wholehearted reliance on constitutional and human rights advocacy to address injustices or the wholesale rejection of the Anglo-American legal system as simply incompatible with indigenous norms and traditions. By contrast, and in proposing an alternative to this academic deadlock, this Article submits that these distinct legal cultures must necessarily interact, and that these interactions are always fertile ones. Drawing on Robert Cover’s concept of “jurisgenerativity” to inform an interactive conception of legal culture, it is argued that this has the capacity to lay a foundation for discursive approaches capable of giving rise to new, mutual traditions.
• Tatum, M. L., & Christensen, G. (2018). Reading Indian Law: Evaluating Thirty Years of Indian Law Scholarship. Tulsa Law Review, 54(1), 31 pp / 12,500 words.
  More info

  This article surveys thirty years of law review articles and compiles a formal ranking system to create a list of the 100 most influential Indian law scholarly pieces from the last thirty years. As Indian law has grown from a niche field offered by a couple schools to a robust legal discipline it is now impossible for the thousands of professors, students, practitioners, and judges to identify the most important pieces published each year. This piece, with its first of its kind approach to ranking Indian law scholarship, has the potential to not only highlight other important works but to become an article that is itself the focus of conversation.
• Tatum, M. L. (2016). Lessons from the United States on Building More Effective Means of Addressing Indigenous Child Welfare Issues. Australia Indigenous Law Review, 23.
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  The socio-economic indicators for Indigenous children are devastating, and it is imperative that effective methods be found to address these problems. Unfortunately, most efforts to date have focused on only one aspect of the problem (although which aspect has varied). This narrowed focus all too often results in an incomplete understanding of the root causes of the problem, which in turn results in solutions that are often simplistic and ineffective. These problems are further complicated by the friction that exists between the federal, state, and tribal governments as they compete for authority to handle a wide variety of matters, including family and child welfare cases. Two recent pilot programs in the United States, however, demonstrate both promising results and hope for the future. Both pilot programs focus on domestic violence and both take a more nuanced look at issues impacting child welfare. This article explores those programs, how they can be used to build more effective methods of improving the well-being of America’s Indigenous children, and whether those methods are applicable outside the U.S. context.
• Tatum, M. L., & Hendry, J. (2015). Human Rights, Indigenous Peoples, and the Pursuit of Justice. Yale Law & Policy Review, 34(2), 34.
  More info

  As Indigenous people in the U.S. and around the world gain a more powerful voice, they are increasingly bringing claims for justice before a variety of tribunals. Many, if not most, of these claims have failed, causing scholars and activists to focus attention on how more effectively to vindicate the rights secured to Indigenous people by national and international laws. This article argues that Western legal culture, and the rights-based approach that forms its foundation, is often ill suited to accommodating claims made by subaltern legal cultures. To the extent that we can move beyond a rights-based approach – and we must – there must be greater acknowledgement at both national and international levels of the importance of contextual considerations to issues of Indigenous justice, along with genuine commitments to legal pluralism.
• Tatum, M. L., & Urbina, A. (2016). On-the-Ground VAWA Implementation: Lessons From the Pascua Yaqui Tribe. ABA Judges Journal, 55, 8-.

Presentations

• Tatum, M. L. (2023, April).

  Moderated panel on Tribal Co-Management of Federal Lands

     

  . Symposium on Indigenous Land Stewardship. Tucson, Arizona, USA: AJELP'.
• Tatum, M. L. (2018, May). Justice for Native Nations: New Tools, Spaces, and Approaches. Udall Center Fellows Presentation. Tucson, Arizona: The University of Arizona's Udall Center for Studies in Public Policy.
• Tatum, M. L. (2017, September). Customary Law of Indigenous Communities: Making Space on the Glabal Stage. Symposium on Global Environmental Law. Glasgow, Scotland: University of StrathclydeCustomary Law of Indigenous Communities: Making Space on the Glabal Stage, presented as part of the University of Strathclyde’s Symposium on Global Environmental Law, September 2017, posted on youtube at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KQ2FAxWrIZc.
  More info

  Customary Law of Indigenous Communities: Making Space on the Glabal Stage, presented as part of the University of Strathclyde’s Symposium on Global Environmental Law, September 2017, posted on youtube at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KQ2FAxWrIZc

Others

• Tatum, M. L., & Hendry, J. (2020, July). Situating McGirt: SCOTUS and the Role of Precedent. Socio-Legal Studies Association’s Blog, http://slsablog.co.uk/blog/blog-posts/situating-mcgirt-v-oklahoma-scotus-and-the-role-of-precedent/. http://slsablog.co.uk/blog/blog-posts/situating-mcgirt-v-oklahoma-scotus-and-the-role-of-precedent/
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  Blog post discussing importance and impact of major US Supreme Court decision
• Tatum, M. L. (2018, February). No Religious Freedom for Traditional Native Religion. Berkley Center Forum (Georgetown University).
  More info

  No Religious Freedom for Traditional Native Religions, (Blog essay responding to “Using a Religious Freedom Framework to Protect the Rights of Native Americans”)https://berkleycenter.georgetown.edu/forum/using-a-religious-freedom-framework-to-protect-the-rights-of-native-americans/responses/no-religious-freedom-for-traditional-native-religions (February 20, 2018)
• Tatum, M. L. (2018, February). Tribal Governments and the Death Penalty. Native America Calling Radio Show.
  More info

  panelist along with Kevin Washburn on radio call in show
• Tatum, M. L., & Hendry, J. (2016, December). Contested Spaces and Cultural Blinders: Perspectives on the Dakota Access Pipeline. Law At the End of the Day Blog. http://lcbackerblog.blogspot.com/2016/12/jen-hendry-melissa-tatum-contested.html
• Tatum, M. L., & Hendry, J. (2016, June 2016). Dehumanization and Control: Not a Gorilla, Not an Emblem.. Law at the End of the Day (Blog). http://lcbackerblog.blogspot.com/2016/06/dehumanization-and-control-essay-by.html
• Tatum, M. L. (2015, February 2015). In Memoriam: G. William Rice. Law at the End of the Day (BLog). http://lcbackerblog.blogspot.com/2016/02/in-memorium-g-william-bill-rice.html