The U.S. Supreme Court has denied a legal challenge to fisheries management in the Great Lakes region filed by the Sault Ste. Marie Tribe of Chippewa, which argued that a 2023 consent decree violated its treaty fishing rights.
Referencing an 1836 treaty between the U.S. government and Tribes around the U.S. state of Michigan, a 1979 court decree found that the Tribal governments around Michigan were allowed to self-govern fishing activities in the waters of lakes Michigan, Huron, and Superior. However, intertribal negotiations over how to manage the fisheries eventually broke down, and the Tribal governments turned to the federal district court to help divvy up the resources. The area has since been managed under multiple court decrees, the latest of which was issued in 2000.
With the consent decree adopted in 2000 nearing expiration, the Tribal, state, and federal governments once again came to the negotiating table in 2019 to advance a new consent decree. This time, however, the Sault St. Marie Tribe took a harder stance against regulations imposed by the state of Michigan, arguing that they unfairly restricted its treaty rights.
“The Sault Tribe worked diligently and in good faith, including through in-person negotiations, to reach a consensus with the other parties,” the Tribe explained in its petition to the U.S. Supreme Court. “But, the Tribe was emphatic in its view that the 2000 Decree had overly restricted tribal treaty rights, and it urged modest increases to fishing opportunities in certain areas and opposed specific restrictions on Tribes, such as data collection provisions and closures of certain waters to future fishing.”
The other Tribes involved were less interested in the Sault St. Marie Tribe’s arguments.
The district court extended the 2000 consent decree as the parties continued to negotiate, but in 2022, the Sault Ste. Marie Tribe told the court that it was unable to reach an agreement and asked for the 2000 consent decree to be terminated.
According to a U.S. Department of Justice brief to the Supreme Court, the other parties then moved forward with negotiations and came to an agreement in December 2022. That agreement would become the basis of a 2023 consent decree, which now governs the treaty fishing area and was adopted over the Sault Ste. Marie Tribe’s objection.
The Sault Ste. Marie Tribe, however, contends it was unlawfully locked out of negotiations between the state government, the federal government, and four other Tribal governments over the 2023 decree. It also maintains that the court did not have the authority to implement a consent decree over its objection.
“We are deeply disappointed in how the other consent decree parties and the court have attempted to silence the Sault Tribe’s voice in regard to this decree, which restricts our rights as a sovereign nation, affects the livelihood of our citizens, and limits the ability of our people to feed themselves,” Sault Tribe Chairman Austin Lowes said in 2024. “Our members represent the largest commercial fishing operation in Michigan and the largest number of subsistence fishers among the tribes. We also invest more than any other Michigan tribe in fisheries management programs. That’s why the Sault Tribe Board of Directors is committed to protecting the treaty-reserved fishing right for many generations to come and will take the necessary legal steps to do so.”
The Tribe challenged the consent decree before the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals in 2024, but the court ultimately rejected its arguments.
In May 2025, the Tribe took one more chance at overturning the 2023 consent decree, petitioning the Supreme Court to take up the case and asking the justices to decide “whether a district court has ‘inherent equitable power’ to enter a coercive ‘decree’ restricting an Indian Tribe’s treaty rights without its consent and without satisfying this Court’s well-established standards for injunctive relief.”
The Supreme Court will not be answering that question because in a 12 January order, the Supreme Court denied the Tribe's petition, leaving the 2023 consent decree in place.
"While the Sault Ste. Marie Tribe of Chippewa Indians intended to protect our treaty rights and not concede to the State’s demand for biweekly reporting, which has never demonstrated to be necessary, we respect the outcome and will work cooperatively with the other Tribes to implement the consent decree," Lowes told Native News Online.
