Standing up for Standing Rock

Since April, hundreds of protesters have marched into North Dakota to camp alongside native tribespeople in protest of the construction of the Dakota Access Pipeline. The project is a 1,172-mile-long underground oil pipeline that will carry almost 500,000 barrels of crude oil per day from northwest North Dakota to southern Indiana. At its heart, the struggle being fought over it is one against the clout of big oil interests in our government processes and against the continued invisibility of indigenous peoples and their issues in the media.

Earlier this year, the District Court for the District of Columbia ruled in Standing Rock Sioux Tribe v. U.S. Army Corps of Engineers that it would not issue a stop to the Corps’ permits being used by Dakota Access to build the pipeline. The court’s opinion explored whether the obligations of the National Historic Preservation Act and other relevant laws were met by the Corps with respect to the Tribe. Ultimately, it found that they were: the opinion concluded that the tribe was “unlikely to succeed on the merits of its NHPA claim” and “failed to show that any harm [would] befall it in the absence of an injunction.” That was in spite of small but nonetheless clear pieces of evidence in the opinion that revealed the pipeline would pose a risk to cultural sites missed by official inspections and that the tribe did eventually articulate concerns about DAPL’s construction in straightforward, negotiable terms. While the broader facts of the case, legal standards for an injunctive ruling and the ruling itself are all clear, it is evident from the outcome that the legal protections designed to safeguard native lands and cultural resources have failed.

To make matters worse, in the face of injustice, media coverage of the entire ordeal by major networks has been spotty at best. A few organizations have covered statements by the Corps and Dakota Access and a smattering more have discussed statements by President Obama and Senator Bernie Sanders, but almost none have promoted the story of or held in-depth discussion about how a corporate powerhouse has essentially trampled through tribal protections. For example, there has been little discussion of the implications of the Fort Laramie Treaty of 1851 which may be standing law in favor of the tribe in this conflict. And more broadly, the news media has steadfastly ignored the entire constellation of struggles over the course of American history concerning how colonialism and imperialism have come into conflict with and effectively stamped out indigenous people’s land rights, ways of life and self-determination. That is unacceptable: as we wrote after Columbus Day, media attention that fails to bring consumers into conversations about history and questions of responsibility “not only glosses over mass genocide and oppression but also contributes to the continued invisibility of native communities and issues in today’s world.”

We all ought to pay more attention to the plight of those at Standing Rock. The ongoing protests are about water rights, the wellbeing of indigenous populations and the clout of the oil industry in our government, but they are also fundamentally about disrupting the darker sides of capitalism and the steady state of injustice against indigenous peoples that has fueled parts of our country’s success from its beginning. They stand as a flashpoint of countless issues that are fundamental to the hard questions about justice in America, what it looks like and for whom it is served.

The Editorial Board did not reach quorum for this editorial.