Self-study
P1
Many Native Americans view the archaeological excavation and museum display of ancestral skeletal remains and items buried with them as a spiritual desecration. ███
NA perspective / problem ·
Digging up ancestral remains and items buried with them is offensive
Potential solution ·
Legal remedies can prohibit or regulate digging up remains/items, as long as NA can establish standing
Three bases of standing ·
These categories of plaintiffs traditionally have standing
(1) deceased's heirs, (2) owner of the property on which grave is located, (3) parties with clear interest in preservation of a particular grave. For the last category, graves that are recent and associated with identifiable NA communities are likely to support standing. But graves that are old and not associated with a nearby NA community are less likely to support standing.
When there is standing ·
Common law can allow NA to bring claims against archaelogists and museums
P2
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Details of common law protection ·
Property law can establish NA claims to dug up artifacts
In one case, the court ruled that the common law doctrine of abandonment does not apply to objects buried with deceased people. This suggests artifacts from NA ancestral graves should be returned to the tribal groups that can establish standing.
P3
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Individual vs. Communal Property ·
Museums can't assume valid title to an artifact simply because they purchased it from an individual NA
An individual NA doesn't have title to artifacts that are communal property.
Passage Style
Problem-analysis
Single position
11.
According to the passage, which ███ ██ ███ █████████ ██ ████ ██ █████ █████████ ███████ ███████
a
Once a plaintiff's ████████ ███ ████ ████████████ ████ █████ ███ ███████ ████ █████████ ██ ███████ ████ ███ █████ █████████ ████ ██████ ███████
Unsupported comparison. The author never discusses the relative difficulty of resolving cases involving recent graves and ancient graves, when the plaintiff has standing. Although it’s harder to establish standing in cases that involve ancient graves, (A) concerns a comparison after we’ve already established standing.
b
The distinction between ██████████ ███ ████████ ████████ ██ ███████ ██ █████ ██ ████ ██████
No support for this distinction “usually” (over half of the time) being an issue. Sometimes it might be an issue, but the author never suggests its an issue in more than half of cases.
c
Even when a ███████████ ████████ ███ ████ ████████████ ████████ ███ ██████ ██ ████ ██ █ █████ ███ ███ ██████ ██ ██████ █████████ ██ ████ ████ ██████
No support for the inability of property law to protect claims in “most” cases where standing has been established. Although the author does indicate that in most cases standing cannot be established, in the cases where standing can be established, we don’t know how often property law fails to protect the graves.
d
In most such ██████ ██████ ███ ████ ███ █████████ ███████ █ █████ █████ ███ ████████████ ████ ██████ █████████ ████ █████████
e
Common law is ██████ ████ ██ █ █████ ███ ███ ██████ ██ ██████ █████████ ███ ████ ███████████ ████████ ██ ████ ██████
No basis for asserting that common law is “rarely used” as the basis of claims where standing is already established.