On June 29, the Supreme Court issued a bizarre and horrifying decision. In Oklahoma v. Castro-Huerta, a 5-4 Supreme Court majority held that a state can prosecute crimes against Indian victims by non-Indian people even if those crimes occur on Indian reservations. More concerning, however, is why the court said that states have this power. As Justice Brett Kavanaugh wrote: “The Court today holds that Indian country within a State’s territory is part of a State, not separate from a State,” reasoning that “as a matter of state sovereignty, a State has jurisdiction over all of its territory, including Indian country.”

With a few sentences, the Supreme Court casually dismissed the hard-won legal promise of a domestic dependent nationhood free from state power. Without having to sign a treaty or fight a war, the Supreme Court handed the states presumptive power over Indian lands.