Oxford Casino’s lawsuit challenging the Wabanaki Nations’ exclusive rights to operate internet gaming is threatening to turn longstanding legal doctrine on its head.
American laws have long considered Indigenous tribes to be political groups, not racial ones. In seeking rights to operate igaming, Oxford is challenging that doctrine.
U.S. Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh invited the argument in 2023, appended to the court’s decision not to hear a similar case. He seemed to suggest that a challenge on equal protections grounds — an argument that has been made, but not reexamined — might be more viable.
So that’s what lawyers for the casino did.
