The Des Moines Register

James Ironshell has lived with his wife and daughters on the Meskwaki Nation settlement in Iowa for more than a decade. Now he's fighting tribal authorities who want to ban him from his home because he's from another tribe.

Authorities say Ironshell has violated a tribal ordinance that prohibits Meskwaki women from sharing a settlement home with men who are not Meskwaki.

Ironshell is a Rosebud Sioux. His wife, Eloise, is Meskwaki. Both say the ban amounts to racial discrimination.

"Not only is it saddening, it's really confusing," said James Ironshell, 49, a U.S. Army veteran. "This is 2008." The dispute raises a legal question with implications that reach far beyond the settlement: Does the U.S. Constitution provide equal protection rights to American Indians as it does to other U.S. citizens? Ironshell's attorney says yes. Tribal officials say no. State officials are staying out of the dispute.

Legal experts say the case is rare because intertribal marriages are common nationwide.

But Ironshell's chances of getting relief from state or federal courts are slim because of tribal sovereignty, said Raymond Cross, a University of Montana law professor who studies American Indian rights.

"The U.S. Constitution does not apply to tribal governments," Cross said. "The reason for that is a practical one. Tribal governments were not part of the plan of union that formed the U.S. in 1787." As a result, nearly all tribes have their own rule-making authority independent of federal, state and local laws.

The Meskwaki Nation's laws don't ban marrying outside the tribe, but a Meskwaki woman can't share a settlement home with a man who isn't a member of the tribe.

The conflict is rooted in settlement housing, said Roger Sanders, who runs the Meskwaki Nation's police department.

Homes are owned and assigned by the tribe, not individual members. "There's a limited number of houses available, and I think they want to maximize their ability to assign houses to tribal members first," said Sanders, who is not a member of the tribe.

Sanders couldn't verify the Ironshells' claim that a Meskwaki man can live with a woman who doesn't belong to the tribe. Tribal leaders did not return telephone calls this week.

"All these white women who live here have more rights than I do," said Eloise Ironshell, a blackjack dealer at the Meskwaki Casino.

While some of the Meskwaki Nation's laws appear discriminatory to outsiders, Sanders said, they're no less binding. "Because of their cultural values, the courts have said that discrimination is not illegal," he said.

James Ironshell said the discrimination started 13 years ago when he and his wife were newlyweds. The Ironshells now have two daughters, Aileena, 12, and Abigail, 7.

James Ironshell has been arrested for trespassing twice, ticketed six times and thrown out of a tribal powwow. A sign once posted on the settlement said, "J. Ironshell: Go Home." The trespassing charges were directed to the Tama County attorney's office because the tribe lacked law enforcement at the time, said James Ironshell's attorney, Darrell Meyer.

Tama County officials dropped the charges because tribal witnesses never appeared in court to testify against Ironshell, Meyer said. "They didn't want to set a precedent that if they showed up under subpoena, they didn't want to affect their claim of sovereignty," he said.

Since then, the tribe has created a police department and courts system.

Sanders said the new layer of law enforcement probably gave tribal leaders the confidence to issue an exclusionary order to Ironshell for the first time last week.

Meyer asked a district court judge to stop the order, which he said could enable tribal leaders to haul Ironshell to a U.S. Bureau of Indian Affairs holding facility in Nebraska.

Attorneys on both sides were in private negotiations this week.

Meyer said he will drop the district court petition and work through the tribal court system if Meskwaki leaders agree to delay the ban until the case is closed.

Ironshell will sue in federal court if he loses the tribal case, Meyer said. He acknowledged that federal courts have dodged similar cases in the past because they lacked jurisdiction, but "I think that issue is going to have to be revisited." Cross, the law professor, said the U.S. Supreme Court has ruled before on a tribe's exclusion of a non-member who lived on a settlement with his family.

In that case, the man was accused of assaulting both a tribal officer and a federal peace officer, Cross said. The justices rejected the man's double jeopardy claim because he was convicted in both tribal and federal courts.

Ironshell has no criminal history other than the failed trespassing charges.

He said he won't leave the settlement. He's taking community college classes full time, has a long court battle ahead of him - and he has a family.

"The girls would be torn apart," said Eloise Ironshell, her voice breaking. "They live through stress every day wondering if their dad is going to be home."