News Release
ikiyA Collective
Across the U.S: Yesterday Indigenous organizers from ikiyA Collective and allies from People vs. Fossil Fuels and 350.org held a day of action against Gibson Dunn LLC protesting their involvement in trying to strike down the Indian Child Welfare Act for their big oil client, Energy Transfer. Across the country, groups held call-in parties.
This comes after ikiyA Collective and allies shut down the lobby to their D.C. office on November 9th as SOTUS heard the oral arguments for Brackeen V. Haaland. Organizers entered the lobby with a drum singing prayer songs before security removed them from the building.
Matthew McGill, a lawyer at Gibson Dunn, is representing the Brackeens in this case pro bono, alongside Paul Clement, an attorney who has a history of regularly attacking existing Indian law and worked to disestablish the Mashpee Tribe’s reservation in 2020. Gibson Dunn represents Energy Transfer, the pipeline company behind the Dakota Access Pipeline, Bayou Bridge Pipeline, and the Permian Pipeline.
Indigenous resistance cost Kelsey Warren’s Energy Transfer $7.5 Billion during the Standing Rock protests against the Dakota Access Pipeline. Tribal nations hold 2% of all land but their total value of tribal fossil fuel resources is around $1.5 trillion
As with any culture or nation, the future ceases to exist if children are prevented from carrying on the languages, traditions, and knowledge passed down from previous generations.
“ICWA is tool of assimilation and a means to continue the genocides that has been wielded against tribal nations and Indigenous children repeatedly throughout history. Residential schools did not end, they just evolved into child protective services. This is case is about weakening tribal sovereignty to give big oil greater access to tribal lands. This impacts not just Native communities, but everyone who will suffer from climate chaos. Gibson Dunn should expect Indigenous resistance.” said ikiya Collective
ICWA & Energy Transfer Timelines:
1978– ICWA is passed to ensure Native communities are kept intact to preserve cultural ways
October 2014: Indigenous-led DAPL protests start
April 2016: Sacred Stone Camp begins at Standing Rock to stand in the way of the Dakota Access Pipeline
February 2017: Standing Rock Protests end
October 2017: Energy Transfer’s legal representative Gibson Dunn file the Brackeens’ federal lawsuit in the federal District Court in Fort Worth pro bono.
About ikiyA Collective
ikiyA Collective is a frontline-led group of femme, queer, two-spirit Black, Indigenous, and people of the global majority organizing in Oklahoma, Texas, and New Mexico who believe through direct action another world is possible.
Visit ikiyacollective.org for more information
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