ELR Citation: 43 ELR 20046
No(s). 11-5328 (D.C. Cir. Mar 1, 2013)

The D.C. Circuit upheld DOI's decision not to grant the Muwekma Ohlone Tribe's petition to be recognized as an Indian tribe. Muwekma is a group of American Indians from the San Francisco Bay area. Its members descended from a previously recognized tribe called the Verona Band, yet there is no evidence that the Verona Band or Muwekma remained federally recognized after 1927. DOI denied the request after determining that the Muwekma failed to satisfy all the criteria set forth in the agency's recognition procedures for tribes (the Part 83 process). The group filed suit, claiming that DOI denied Muwekma equal protection by requiring it to proceed under the Part 83 process despite summarily recognizing two other Indian tribes—the Ione Band of Miwok and the Lower Lake Rancheria of California—outside the Part 83 process. But unlike Muwekma, these tribes had multiple post-1927 government-to-government interactions with the United States, and DOI's emphasis on government-to-government interaction as a distinguishing characteristic is not arbitrary. Because DOI adequately explained why Muwekma is not similarly situated to Ione or Lower Lake, Muwekma's equal protection claim fails. The group's claims that DOI unlawfully terminated Muwekma's tribal recognition was also without merit, as were its claims that DOI violated the group's due process.