In recent days there has been an article published that references a decision made in the year 2008. In 2008, there was a highway expansion on route 26 in Mount Hood, Oregon . The expansion was a safety measure, because the turn had been seen to be very dangerous and even fatal in one instance. This conclusion was made by the U.S. Department of Transportation, Bureau of Land Management, and Oregon Department of Transportation. The Yakama and Grand Ronde tribes argued that the building of the highway left turn lane violated their First Amendment rights and more specifically their Free Exercise of religion. The site where the highway was built was named, “Ana Kwna Nchi Nchi Patat” which in english translates to the Place of Big Big Trees. The construction site was a location of worship for the tribes. The tribes would constantly visit the site because it was the location of remembrance. The tribe would go to remember their ancestors, and pray. They would pray through a stone altar that was surrounded by trees. Through these prayers the tribe would talk to their creator. Before the construction had been started the tribal members had told officials about the religious significance of the location. Regardless of this, the construction of the highway continued anyway. The construction removed both a stone altar and trees. Two of the tribal elders , Wilbur Slockish and Carol Logan, seen in the image below, took this issue to court. They were dismissed in two lower courts, and now are planning an appeal to the Supreme Court. They are going to the court on the basis that both the Religious Freedom Restoration Act and their Free Exercise clause of the First Amendment are being violated. The Religious Freedom Restoration Act makes it so the government can not burden an individual's exercise of religion. In an interview Wilbur Slockish states, “We’ve always taken care of this land, taken care of our burial sites, because that’s what we were charged with by our creator — to make sure they weren’t disturbed, To me, it’s like them going into the Catholic church or the Protestant church and cutting their altar”. The court argued that the construction of the highway did not have a substantial burden on the members of the tribe and therefore was one of the main reasons the case was dismissed.
In my opinion, I think that the decision of the lower courts is correct. For starters the space is not private. While the site is an ancient burial site for the Yakama and Grand Ronde tribes, it is public space to everyone. If the location of the site was private this would be a different situation. I do agree that there is a burden in this situation. The Yakama and Grand Ronde tribe can no longer go to this space to pray. However, with this being said, the tribes can still worship and pray in other locations. Bob Jones University v United States set the precedent that just because a religious group has a burden placed upon them does not mean that the issue is Unconstitutional. In this specific case I do not think that there is a substantial burden on the tribe. There was a compelling state interest in the decision of the case because the location of the burial site was causing dangerous driving. As mentioned before, in one instance someone had died from the terrain. The safety of drivers on the road in Oregon was the compelling state interest in this situation. There were no less restrictive means for accomplishing the state goal because the burial site needed to be removed in order to fully fix the problem and protect drivers. I also think that the government's decision is neutral. They are making this decision for all people in order to create better safety measures. The goal of the Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA) is to protect religious groups from being burdened by the government. I do think this is important in this case, however in Burwell v. Hobby Lobby, Ruth Bader Ginsburg states an important fact that is relevant in this case in regard to the Religious Freedom Restoration Act when she stated, “In proposing the amendment, Senator Kennedy stated that RFRA, in accord with the Court’s pre-smith case law, ‘does not require the Government to justify every action that has some effect on religious exercise.’” Ultimately Ginsburg was alluding to the conclusion that some burdens are incidental and not controllable. In both the Bob Jones University v United States, and the case being presented both represent an issue of compelling state interest in conflict with religious burdens. However in both cases, I find that the compelling state interest overrides the religious groups' burdens.
9 comments:
While I do disagree that there was not a significant burden on the Native American tribes, I do ultimately side with the state and their compelling interest. Safety is of utmost importance and expanding the highway will hopefully prevent anymore unnecessary deaths. There was unfortunately no less restrictive mean in terms of highway placement, however I do question whether more could have been done to lessen the tribe's burden. Removing an ancient prayer space is a significant burden, and I do wonder if perhaps the state could have worked with the tribe to possibly replant the two trees and relocate the stone alter to a nearby area in order to still keep some prayer space available.
Good post! I would personally argue that the substantial burden of a Native religious site which they have maintained for years and years being taken down because of possible unsafe roads seems like a drastic overselling of safety. Religious freedom seems to be of utmost importance over other compelling interests until it comes to Native Americans. Who is to say this is private land? These people have generations upon generations of people who cared for this land, who is to say that they do not have the right to practice their religious ritual, even under the guise of safety? The precedent sent in Bob Jones v US designated racial discrimination as the cutoff point of religious freedom, but possible safety concerns does not seem like a salient enough interest to override religious liberties like this.
You had a good post! This is a tricky case because of the Native Americans vs. a compelling state interest. I would not necessarily agree that there is not a substantial burden on the tribes and their means of worship. Yes, there are other places to worship and practice their religion, however it has been in their religious practices for years and years. I feel if it was a Christian church and the government wanted to merely put a road that was “safer,” which meant the church had to be removed, it would without a doubt never happen. However, history has shown us that we exploit Native American tribes to better serve government policies and so-called safety standards. I understand the compelling state interest in wanting better safety precautions, however, since it such a narrow road, why can’t the government lower the speed limit? Why can’t there be a stop light that lets one lane of traffic go at a time? Obliterating a sacred, tribal place of worship may be overstepping the compelling state interest of creating “safer” road conditions.
This is an interesting case--at first when I read the situation, I was compelled to side with the Yakama tribe, because I disagree with the court's proclamation that there was no burden placed on the tribe. In principle, I do believe that the tribe's religious freedom is being violated, but I agree with your analysis that in this scenario, there was a compelling state interest in expanding the highway, and that there was no less restrictive means to do so. I do wonder if the state could have done more to accommodate the tribe in the situation, because while they aren't necessarily doing anything unconstitutional, there is no doubt that there is still a significant burden being placed on the tribe.
This is interesting. I definitely see your argument that the state has a compelling interest in maintaining the safety of all civilians and that there is evidence that this turn was deadly and needed to be fixed. The easiest solution was to uproot the tribes altar and trees and work with the road that was already there and make it safer. However I agree with S. Weaver, my first thought was although that might have been the easiest solution, were there other solutions that could've been used? Maybe they could've blocked off that portion of the road and completely rebuilt the road going in a different direction maybe in a more round about way. This might've added more time onto travelers ETA's but, it could've been worth researching. Or they could've lowered the speed limit. I see this as a facially neutral solution in that the state is saying they were just trying to protect the public by restructuring this road but they definitely knew it would substantially burden the tribe when they were uprooting the altar and trees.
While I recognize that there is a substantial burden placed on the Native American tribes, I do think that the state does have a greater compelling interest to protect the lives of their citizens. Because the religious site was on public grounds, it is completely within the government's transgression on whether or not to construct the turning lane, and because a lack of a turning lane had led to a death, something had to be done. It is sad that a Native religious site was torn down, however the lives of the commuters on the road should take precedent.
Interesting case, I have to say that I do not like how it was made seem like it's either people's lives or keeping a native religious site intact. By wording scenarios like these as such people are biased to agree that the removal of this altar is correct because of the state interest. First of all this is the type of rhetoric that has been used to justify racist and discriminatory acts throughout history, and of course the removal of the altar was not a substantial burden to the lower courts because first of all they do not have the perspective of natives. Regarding the accident that happen, it is not the natives fault that the government chose to construct in that area. I think it is very unfortunate that when it comes to native tribes trying to keep their religion alive cases like these are used to the advantage of the majority, because I have rarely heard of a Christian church being demolished even though there is a lot of controversy about these being built in specific locations that could be used as places for the better of the people.
There is no doubt in my mind that a substantial burden was placed on the Yakama tribe's ability to worship, given the demolition of their alter and holy site. Unfortunately for the tribe, the site is federal land, and the government interest—protecting motorists on a roadway known to be treacherous—is quite compelling. Unless an arrangement could have been reached that both protected motorists and preserved the native lands, which was not, as far as I understand, proposed, I do not feel that the government's actions were unconstitutional.
I agree with you that the compelling state interest overrides the small burden being imposed on the Yakarma and Grand Ronde tribes. With this land being public (owned by the government) and not owned by the tribes, the state has free will to do what they want with the land. This change was not made with malicious intent of placing a burden on this one group, but the highway was expanded with the wellbeing of the general public in mind. By doing this it is also important to remember that a small burden is placed on the group as they can no longer worship in this specific area, but their rights to freely exercise their beliefs are not being infringed upon. This construction does not mean they can no longer exercise their religion. In regards to Wilbur Slockish’s comments on this construction being like cutting the altar out of a Catholic or Protestant church furthers my point that even if this was to occur, members of those religions would still be able to exercise their religion, just without the material good of an altar. While I don’t see this construction infringing on the groups rights to freely exercise their religion, I will make note that I do see the burden it is having on them. With the goal of the RFRA being to protect religious groups from being burdened by the government I do see that this is being breached to a small degree. However, I do agree with RBG’s point that some burdens are incidental and not controllable – and I do see that being the case in this situation. It does not take away from the fact however that the group is unfortunately dealing with a small burden.
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