Welcome cspan friends for day four of the National ConstitutionSupreme Court rec recap, its an extraordinary experiment in Public Education to convene scholars on all sides of the cases but the Supreme Court is broadcasting live for the first time in history and here at the beginning of the second week we just heard to remarkably rich cases and i am thrilled to join you again to understand the best arguments on both sides in the spirit of educating ourselves about the constitution. Im Jeffrey Rosen the president of the National Constitutionn center in philadelphia and we begin all over National ConstitutionCenters Programs by reciting inspiring constitution senator which prepares us for the learning ahead. N e National Constitution center is only constitution chartered by congress to disseminate information about the u. S. Constitution on a nonpartisan basis in order to increase awareness and understanding of constitution among the american people. That is what we will do today and thank you for joining to increase your own awareness and understanding of the constitution. Our first case is one that is deeply important and unfamiliar and i cant wait to talk about it with her to experts, this is versus oklahoma and joining us to discuss Lindsay Robinson who submitted on behalf of the historianit legal scholars in Cherokee Nation in support of the practitioner and for the center of study of indian lawof and policy chickasaw nation in native american law in sam k in the president ial professor at Oklahoma University school of law, Robert Sharon filed a brief on behalf of the oklahoma District Attorneys Office in support of the respondent, he is an associate at baker hostetler, hes represented parties before the Supreme Court in the u. S. Courts appeals in the delighted to welcome both, thank you for joining us lindsay robertsonro Robert Sharon. Thank you so much. So glad youre here. Lets begin with you since you filed a brief on petitioners chief Justice Roberts right after the gate asked her question, he said the state argues that this Indian Community is not an independent reservation but independent Indian Community, tell us about that, rather technical sunday distinction and why so much of the case hangs on. Its unclear that it does but it certainly became the states principal argument the school around that it did not appear in the argument in the murphy case which left some of us scratching our heads and they seem to have shifted midst under midstream and making a different argument on the Indian Community, the language comes from title 18 section 1151 of the u. S. Code which is adopted in 1948 and defined beauty as a place where specifically to federal criminal statutes applied the general crimes act known as the Indian Country and known as the focus of this case. The language in that section 1151 a is reservations, 1151b is dependent Indian Community and 1151c is former indian allotment but that was not a part of this case, the first two were. The language appeared in 1948 in the u. S. Code having been drawn by congress of a series of Supreme Court decisions. The reservation language was what the argument in the precursor to this case that was last years murphy case and there is loads of history and everyone who goes to school the United States is about indian reservations and treaties in the sort of thing, the Indian Community is a little unusual for people and its actually a new mexico creation, what happened new mexico was a territory, Federal Territory for a long time and in the course of new mexicos territorial history the question arose are the plum blows indians for purposes of application and federal indian statutes specifically a statute called the trading intercourse act among other things prohibit the sale of alcohol to indians in indian countries and a bunch of merchants and speculators in the nonindian communities in albuquerque running out to the problems selling alcohol to the public citizens and getting busted for it by the feds. Prior to statehood, the state turned to real court said this is fine because they are not indians because are civilized, et cetera, the federal government was concerned that they through language into the oklahoma new mexico enabling act, yes they are indian and new mexicans continue to violate this law in the sandoval case came up just mentioned numerous times in the world argument today, sandoval was a fight over whether are the problems indians in the book of the decision if youn, read it, is very racist, deals with levels of civilization, are they sufficiently inferior to white people that we can consider indians. In the answer to that is yes and the pushback that comes from the state of new mexico is the abbot their citizens, the Supreme Court to that said maybe were not entirely sure but it does not make any difference. The final desperate argument, yah they own their land so they cannot be indians and the reason that they own their land it turned out that the problems had owned their land under mexican law and when the United States acquired new mexico we agreed to respect existing Real Property titles. The pope close own their land and the court said that does not disqualify them for being o indians either because look at the five tribes in oklahoma, their land and. Juan and we consider them indians and that shut it down. To build an argument that the public situation and by the way they characterize as an independent Indian Community and thats the language that was lifted and put into 1151b in order to make sure that in the future new mexicans in particular dont try to treat well blows as nonindians and exploit them in consequencend of that. Thank you so much for that, thats a helpful beginning, this is very technical stuff, well explained but i need our viewers to understand the basic thing, theres a huge practical question which is a large percentage of the state of oklahoma under Oklahoma State criminal jurisdiction or not and is still under the control of nativeun americans. Help us understand the basic position of the statesi of oklahoma for when the state became independent sen in 1906 n the state gain the jurisdiction and opposition to what the other side is arguing. The implication question is one that has been discussed at length and theres all this backandforth but if you go and you talk to the local elected District Attorneys who were on the brief that was filed at baker hostetler, you talk to them and learn about whats going on in eastern oklahoma, there are a huge number of consequences immediate consequences, difficulty questions, running two things about what happens if you suddenly apply federal Indian Country status to have an interstate 1. 8 Million People thousand miles from washington, hes enormous, and be a Cottage Industry for lawyers alike. Thats not the simplest way for you to understand what are the implications, the best way to do that is to imagine youre in a state, that means that most of the decisions that deeply impact your daytoday life are made at the local level, the federal government has limited power in the state only addressing certain things, that is helpful especially when you live in ave place that does not line up with the majority policy in washington might be in where youre living with the people who aree governing you, close o you and more likely to get the quality and appropriate government that you want, we need people to protect us from crime, we need people to invest in ouro communities and we need people to set the rules of the road for local law issues, if you put federal Indian Country status and suddenly after 100 years over all of eastern oklahoma, youre not getting into the tribes come youre giving power to congress, to the federal government which is very far away and the relationships in eastern oklahoma, some of what we said today in the views on this case are unrecognizable to oklahomans, in oklahoma, the tribes in the State Government in the people who were indians and on indians is a wonderful society, one of the great states and stories in the history of the union, they can Work Together and they do Work Together, what they havent done and what we havent had to do is suddenly hand over half of the h state of washington. Now you have washington, d. C. , congress,ou special interest and is not the people making the fundamental decisions are not the ones who live in a a coma together and have done so for 100e years. Thank you very much to that and that point that if the state of oklahoma were to lose that would be the ultimate authority after congress and as we heard an argument, any criminal could be convicted under Oklahoma State law in those territories could follow a petition and refile his orrp her case in federal court, i do want to ask about the practical consequences of the attorney general of oklahoma said that a great deal of convictions were at stake, we have over 1700 inmates who committed crimes in the formere indian territory, the state would not have jurisdiction and would have to police half of that number and that doesnt in crimes committed against indians, 3000 inmates may have to be turneded over, 32000 committed in indian territory, a year and thousand that would double to 8000 of that included the native american victim, is this correct or not in your view that if your site were to win, many existing criminal convictions would be overturned or have to be redundant. Theheres two part of question, the answer is we dont know, one of the troubling aspects of the oral argument this happened in the murphy case that the statistics get thrown out an oral argument and theres no real opportunity to dig into them, i know as an oklahoman whos worked in State Government for 20 years including thehe ste governors, we dont keep the sorts of records that we would need to keep at the District Attorney level in order to know what these numbers actually were, we dont keep information on the tribal identity of victims, that will make that calculation problematic and i think a lot of this is done through self identification and as robertt will agree theres a lot of oklahomans to self identify as indiansen were not citizens of tribes which is a n trigger. Will there be consequences on the terminal side, yes, this is the other question theres a prospective and retrospective, prospectively i think the answer is there are problems, congress has a part to fix them, on the retrospective side i think in the i federal system is severely limited by the increased penalties that several of the justices alluded to and by the time limits imposed under federal law in filing petition. I dont know that there would be that many people who would file and on the stateside, we dont know either, the only concrete number we have is a number of people who have filed since the tenth circuits decision in murphy in that number is fewer than 200 and we dont know it that disposition will be. I think the answer is, there will be consequences, we dont know what theyll be prospectively and retrospectively they might be smaller than what people might imagine. Thank you for that, the question of t consequences is oe that the court dealt with recentlywh which came up several times in the argument, ramos decided a few weeks ago that there might have to be many ascases retried because of the incorporation of a previously unincorporated criminal procedure requirement and it was going to take that risk. Robert as you listen to the argument, what did you hear the justices what weight were they giving to the practical considerations, that they were cited several times seem to do suggest that the statutech was clear and congress did in fact turn over jurisdiction to the state, we would have to take the consequences and let the heavens fall and other justices would want pragmatic and the competing approach that you heard among the justices on whether the practical affection matter. I just want to be clear on this because theres been a perception inn this case that yu have the law and the laws on consumer pointing to the consequences to say lets ignor the law and that could not be further from the truth because that would be wrong it isnt really about consequences of the courts decision, what were talking about is instances that have occurred for 100 years in which the issue wouldan come up, first of all, the has many implications for how you into license, but secondly and equally importantly the consequences are just enough that i think we can all agree that you have to look everywhere under every rock and you have to be thorough because the consequences at a minimum, the United States federal government is telling the Supreme Court we dont have the c resources, im telling you the District Attorney does not have the resources to be able to help facilitate the process and handoff attorneys in order to be able to go back and retrial these convictions, we are telling you at a minimum when you look at the one piece let alone Everything Else in handing the entire eastern half of the federal government, we need to look so carefully and we need to look everything in the challenger, the reason why we keep talking about the consequences forns that reason s that this is an enormous historical record over 70 years that is not a single statute like Justice Thomas said is so exceedingly difficult to go through all of this, there were several instances in the argument after several times around getting the dates of treaties, critical ordering, the british legal system they do skeletons for argument we have chronology and you provide these other things and when youre dealing with an original jurisdiction case over an order dispute, you provide so much more information and so much more process that we cant, thats when we talk about the consequences this a this process is nonideal, we know its a massive record, confusing, we know in the usual place for what we expect we dont find it. However, pleaseus keep looking because eastern oklahoma is not a federal Indian Country at the whim of congress, its a place for oklahomans, non india nonidl like have been together 100 years and they want to keep it that way, were not sure that congress will hinder back if the court issues a decision in the wrong way. Taken for that thats a powerful way to put oklahomas argument for more than 100 years oklahomans have been united in congress wanted to keep it that way when admitted Oklahoma State. Justice alito mentioned the statute which several other justices picked up on he talked about the 1897 statute that the laws of the United States shall be applied to all people regardless of race and he said ruling for the particular jurors side will treat people differently based on race and much of the argument came down to whether when oklahoma became a state in 1906 congress wanted to maintain the nondiscrimination principle. Understanding that there is very technical statute that could be parsed, which are broad response to Justice Alitos question. This is a topic that occurs in the century. In oklahoma when we look at federal legislation and ill focus on the enabling act that includes a provision, that was referenced as well, what was missed at the oral argument via both sides, that provision was included in the oklahoma enabling act, not to ensure that native americans and nonnative americans will n be treated identically under the law but to protect the rights of africanamericans and local matera toward. President roosevelt who oversaw the statehood process was terribly concerned that as there was a much of the south at the time the jim crow legislation passed in the abuse of africanamerican through that into the enabling act to stall the state from adopting racist constitution and they sidestepped it and directed the legislator to do it in the first oklahoma legislator passed jim crow legislation segregating schools and also some other stuff, that is the targeted protective group, not native americans of tribal right. Interesting thank you for the context. Speaking oft the racial underpinnings of this case, Justice Kavanaugh several times a questionable history, he said the civil war is key, the five tribes with the confederacy in the civil war, then lots of black slaves, the new treaty in the grass given to railroads were predominantly white, he had a situation of indian territories are predominantly white, 60 white, 10 black and 30 indian in a relevant territory and he said to what degree did that suggest there is no incompatibility of reservation status to help impact what Justice Kavanaugh was getting at. Is an opportunity for him to do it as a question in a threeminute round of an oral argument under these conditions where hes going throughr er th. What hes getting at, when you do the work, the really hard work and you go through this, Justice Kavanaugh zone for that at the oral argument in the case in the d circuit, he said he went through the entire footnote and needed a stiff drink. Hes saying when you go through the whole thing, at the end of the day you understand what is going on and thats how the court has always done it in state boundary cases. Just to be clear, i want to run through the history but before doing that just to be clear, the constitution of the United States says states cannot have their borders to administer the plan diminished without their consent, they can to each other in the Supreme Court, those cases, the disestablishment indian law cases are a subset of that and you have an expressha constitutional provision that says you have to have consent, you have to find it its like a statue acceptance in the constitution, the court has addressed these cases over the years and theres a set of factors that are relevant and all three of them broadly speaking are mentioned in solemn but when the courts have those cases and had to deal with them it goes throughout the history that Justice Kavanaugh is talking about, the way this court in case has gone has made that difficult, Justice Kavanaugh is saying if you go to the history you might find the answer youre looking for in a different place, a different way and it may be informed by the history. Heres a few steps broke quick, ill try to tell you 100 your story that should be a miniseries on hbo. When settlers came over here and there was different tribes, they were different responses of different tribes to what wasnt going on and there was a lot of violent conflict, there were some tribes that did not engage in sustained, there is not a violent conflict, he to use the words but its a way that it was put when they were putting the first native american in the statuary hall, they never went the warpath when we came, they said were going to learn english some ofd, us, were going to have relations. Thats a background of some of these tribes, they were in georgia and alabama. What happened, one of the most despicable terrible things and it still breaks everyones heart including the people on both sides of the case including justices and most important everyone involved in the 17 year period that we are ultimately talking about was the federal government remove them forcibly and wrote treaties that werent on the paper they wrote on, and then pack them up and sent them to indian territory, decimating and killing all of them. That happens. Right before k they did the movement and all the things and broke the promises they rented treating 1833, you can read the provision to that i do think theres one that was fulfilled, that treaty was not anything. Sorry i drop my line of 100 year history. After they do the treaty is not worth anything they do the terrible removal, the federal government does a terribleem thg and then in 1856, after words, these tribes are in the indian territory, it happened. They realize, what we need at this point is we are going to have to buildha a society, life, permanent home we can live in and what does that look like, the 1833 treaty there was worthless before removal, they were going to a place that will be indian territory in the middle of america for every and never be part of the state but in 1856an after removal in 1856 they preceded the treaty and its what we want, we want to state that we can live in, we want to go to the statehood, most situations in every territory people wanted it and its good you bring power locally and then you get the resources, the provisioning 1856 treaty is that you cannot put us in a state without her consent. Now without her consent by the legislative assembly, that treaty and im not making that up, these is what the tribe is telling congress over again, that treaty in 1956 says will become our state without consent. The civil war breaks out and give them what happened with removal unsurprisingly many of the tribes in some parts of the tribes it was not some creeks, not all sided with the south. Following that, that was influenced by the fact of the terrible treatment that had happened to them. There was reconciliation in 1866. This is symbolized in oklahoma, where some of the land in indian territory, where they said this whole thing will be a state, all of oklahoma was going to be a state, some of it will be split into oklahoma territory. We will bring more white settlers in. Now we split up the territory anin two. The civil war happens and we are going to, we are not sure what we will do, we have split it into two territories. And you have lost demographics because we brought in the sooners. This is when they were coming and they said, there were people here before us but they mustve left early. So at that point, right, you have got this really situation, but youve got this whole history consistent in the 1866 actual language understood that the name of the game of what was going to happen next is we were going to build axt state. There was a lot of discussion about that but for the entire period of time eating 66 until 1906, the tribes were working along with the process of how we are going to get the state and all these disputes but at the end of the day in 1906 by the way they did it is maybe not what we were expecting. Theyid didnt say congress has a statute snap your fingers. What theyfe did is say we need o come together. Weve reconciled in 1866 and we need to reunite for congress expressed the enabling act the indians must be allowed to vote Service Delegates and vote on thee constitution. There is a lot of questions about that but we know at the time that is what they thought. We know it because they said they did it having everyone go together in Service Delegates together and numbers of the Service Delegates and the Constitutional Convention that does the job. Then congress of the five tribes act, the enabling act and before and after that they sent this is going to affect the union of the areas, the enlargement of the citizenship and we will have a single United States. Isnt it complicated and long winded and that isnt even scratching the surface. Thank you for sharing it. What i took from that history and justic Justice Breyers ques thatqu its crucial to ask what they were achieving in that convention and Justice Breyer asked instead im still interested in whether it is a reservation or not is beside the point. All we have to i decide is whetr Congress Gave them the ability to try a state crimes and it is the authority they said yes because in 1906, the convention abolished the courts had jurisdiction in the indian territory courts and federal courts and said that these courts have authority to try all state law cases and elsewhere the council suggested this Constitutional Convention was the case where all sides came together and thought that they were turning over jurisdiction. N our yoo persuaded by that or not . Just to make a brief modification to the history, 1903, the sort of picture of the two sides willingly coming together i dont think stands scrutiny in the case called lone wolf versus hitchcock in the plenary power over indians which is to say p the power to abrogae the treaty is with effectively no judicial consequence. This caused aau scrambled in eastern oklahoma which was being overrun by the settlers had this happened because railroads and acquisition californians all of that sort of thing in a desperate attempt to preserve their independence they convened a constitution of their own and send the draft constitution to washington. President roosevelt, Teddy Roosevelt suggested it on the grounds if they met a sequoia and oklahoma territory of the state that would get extra electoral votes in the upcoming president ial election to the democrats who were predicted to dominate the parties. So he forcibly crammed the two of them together. They were 1. 4 Million People which doesnt sound like much until you realize that five years later, new mexicoo and arizona were each entered into ore union would have for a third of the people in just the indian territory t so its a ridiculous crowding of people. The participants in the Constitutional Convention went in a desperate attempt to take control of the thingng to attemt to preserve the tribal autonomy. The transfer of the jurisdiction to court as a routine element of any transition from the territorial status intended to provide for what happened so i think theres nothing really exceptional, certainly related to the continuing resolution status from there muscogee creek nation. And if you would permit me, i have one other thing, i think that they deliberately, Justice Roberts said the. Easter oklahoma is at stake he here. Suggesting there is a serious amount of land that turns on what is being delegated which is why the case was so important. Here there is much more being done involving the sovereignty. Can you point to any case where we would apply this solemn framework to the case where so much is being done and i guess in unpacking that is this the te that involved a big chunk of the state is this something going on to make it seem so much more broad than previous cases. The consequences would incur if its going to happen is thet tribal attorneys and their counsel and people who want to be involved that they are going to identify that there is an issue and they will want to litigate it or its not that big of a deal and its just a small little town with a thousand people. What is just phenomenally got smackingly hard to comprehend in this case is the idea that nobody thought about this for a hundred years and i wonder because youve got to look at the real oklahoma not the one that you might imagine based on the way that has been treated everywhere else. The court has recognized the constitution to. Read it sidebyside. They are creating the state and have these rights from the number one not like until 48 and arizona. Kein that state, the key thing s it is incredibly difficult to consider how could this have not come up. The chief justice of the Supreme Court of oklahoma after they did all that is a member of the tribe. The second governor of the first senator, one of the first was a member of the tribe, five or six thmbers. There is a difficult mystery and the issue is a you dont have that much in the government and then not have people raise it. This comes up in the cases where inexplicably theres either a mistake or its difficult with this other piece of paper ive got to look at all the paper. Its a huge record. You keep looking until you find it and then at the end off the day you say what if i cant. Then they went back and said where is the piece of paper and no one can find it this wonderfully happened. Its incredibly important, not like where i can just clear this up. I think they are going to keep the power. But in the cases, you have that option called sovereign quiescence and if you respect the tribes and states come as much as you possibly can in as much as most do and the Supreme Court does and with a lot of folks respecting the states, even if you give them full respect, there is a doctrine thats never have to come up in one of these cases. I dont think we have to get there i just think we have to work on these cases to see this record and find it. Its very difficult its the perplexing quarrel in any instance and in this one you have everything that is going on with all of the resources. He was at the statuary hall one of thepo members of congress and he was the lawyer for this critical period of time when everyone thought it had been done and he explained that the way he had done it is if we look at the field and we have everyone participate in a Constitutional Convention, that is how we united, that is what he thought, that is what the voyeur thought at the time and if we did it in this unusual way. Thank you so much for that. To describe a new state in washington so a great quotation. One of our great listeners asked for those that havent followed this closely, what is the end result bottom line depending on which one ends. It depends on the basis of the courts decision. If they decide they sort of oklahoma particularized decision, then probably not. Its less likely to have any impact outside if they apply more broadly general rules that almost certainly it could have an impact outside of oklahoma. And i think that the tribe is looking for here and what the system is looking for is the resolution in support of the finding of the continued preservation. Its a simpler analysis then i think it might be if we follow nebraska versus parker to look at the language of the allotment. Going to paraphrase that they should keep their word and i think thats really whats at stake for the nation. That scenario that if the tribe with a reservation that is guaranteed continuity of the existence loses that separate selfgoverning status over its own land as a consequence of lasome particular number or an excess of people moving in is appalling to consider. That is conquest by the relocation with no need to take in the military action. It cant be a fundamental principle in the way that the United States of america deals with its indigenous people. You are right they keep their word and im getting that in a book about a review of the u. S. Failure to keep its word when it comes to the treaty. One final question then time for closing arguments and well move on to the next case. Carl asks, forgive me, dana asks why is indian wall case on the Supreme Court all of a sudden becoming non textualists and one otext of us and oneof the eh is something that theyve never considered . Is that what they were getting . Its not what i heard. What i heard is that there is a perplexing about what is going on here and its difficult to understand unless you go with it ssomuch text. And again, its really hard. Theres all these documents citing to congress a and saying heres what happened and you read them and you dont know whats going on so you have to spend a lot of time to understandhe what its original meaning was and there is so much of it. Ithi makes it difficult in the case where a criminally convicted person is trying to get out of jail and goes lightening up to the Supreme Court. That isnt how theyve done it in the state border cases. That is where we arere and what they are trying to do but its important and when you look at it closely, youll see what is going on but you need to spend the time and have the history and get it right and not get things wrong saying its coming after for the reporters. That came before. Youve got to get it right and then it is very difficult, but theres no desire to get away from it next year. Thank you so much. We will have time for brief closing arguments and it is complicated but important and fascinating. The first one is to you. Why do you agree with the petitioners that in no statute that congress ancould congress e language is establishing the reservation at its jurisdiction and oklahoma . Because they didnt, and i think the state admitted as much in trying to patch together an argument based on multiple statutes and then contextualizing it or attempting to contextualize it by reference was to me had the feel of the law office history. I think the tribe is right. I think that this is not as complicated a case as it needs to be. Ec we have a clear precedent on how to determine whether congress has disestablished the reservation. I will say this the question came up multiple times and you asked it as well, what about the surplus land cases and how do they fit in . This is like a surplus land case but that is just a case where a tribe has agreed to have its reservation i wanted or not. Its been forcibly allotted where the parcels give parcels o individuals or fixed amounts of land. So youve got stuff left over. What do you do with thedo baath . You sell it or the u. S. Buys it. That is the surplus land and where we have the cases generated. What we dont have cases about is people saying how about the allotted land, maybe that isnt in the country either. Nobody made the claim because its never occurred to anybody that it might not still be part of the reservation. Suddenly the stuff that got sold the surplus. And that includes those that have subsequently been bought by nonindians. They are clearly still part of the reservation but the irony of this case the first time weve seen a challenge to the allotted land as being non Indian Country, and then that makes this in some ways more appalling than it might have been and i think that this comes down to consequences and if it were smaller in the middle of the desert, no one would care. I think its because they are non Indian Economic and other interests involved in the cases that have sort of been built up, the case put on fear and anxie anxiety. I hope the court will end up in this place to step up and do what is fair and right. Keep in mind its not just our own National History with a history of the muskogee creek people who have been forcibly relocated and made all sorts of promises and had them not for the paper they were written on. Its an opportunity for the Supreme Court actually reverse patto actuallyreverse that for e and issue an opinion that treats the promises as worth something more than the paper that they are written on and i hope that is what the Court Decides on. Thank you very much for that. Please tell the viewers why you believe congress did intend to disestablished the reservation and therefore for the purposes ofhi this case the can be prosecuted as a member of the tribe for crimes committed under exclusive federal jurisdiction. Thank you. And thanks, everyone, for listening. I think it boils down to this. You are someone that believes the force removal and trail of tears is one of the first things that has ever been done and t ty believe they should live up to their words and you want to see justice done because that was not as if the 1890s and because they worked with the tribes to get them to do the best thing they possibly could as a permanent home with people in local government and their neighbors, not federal superintendent from washington and congress. They gave them a state and they are emblazoned on the seal of the state and you know who drew the first,o these tribes. There was reconciliation and it was creating a state that would have the economy and the cultural sensitivity and appreciation for history in order for them to be successful. And you know who was right about this case, the tribes when they said over and over and over again that they dont have some federal indian reservation that is under the auspices of the federal government. Whole state and that is the right legal result and unfortunately it is just a difficult case and it takes a long time to understand tha butf you dont take away with congressif gave them, dont take this away and turn it into a federal system. They didnt suit this case. Thank you so much for a deep and passionate argument in helping us to understand the complicated and very important arguments. Is blanca while the corona virus pandemic continues, the Supreme Court heard an argument on teleconference on a case involving religious freedom and whether federal courts have a role in discrimination cases filed by employees employed by a religious institution. This is one hour and 40 minutes. The argument on case to 67 lady of Guadalupe School versus agnes morrisey and the consolidated case. Mr. Chief justice, may i please the court. The separation of church and state means the government cannot interfere in the churchs decisions about who is authorized to teach its religi