Melissa L. Tatum

Professor Tatum specializes in Indian and Indigenous peoples’ law. She has written extensively about tribal governments and tribal courts, particularly with respect how they fit within the political and legal structure of the United States. Professor Tatum also teaches and writes about law and culture, especially with respect to cultural property and with respect to managing sacred sites. She was a contributing author to the 2005 edition of Felix Cohen's Handbook of Federal Indian Law. 

Professor Tatum has also done substantial work with a variety of governments and organizations putting theory into practice. She consulted with the Pascua Yaqui Tribe as it became one of the first in the nation to implement VAWA 2013's special domestic violence criminal jurisdiction. She has also served on task forces in Michigan and New Mexico charged with developing procedures to facilitate cross-jurisdictional enforcement of protection orders, and has taught seminars on domestic violence and protection orders throughout the United States for judges, attorneys, law enforcement, and victim advocates, including at the National Tribal Judicial Center. Between 1999 and 2006 she served as a judge on the Southwest Intertribal Court of Appeals. Professor Tatum joined the University of Arizona faculty in January 2009, after serving as a faculty member at the University of Tulsa for more than thirteen years.

ORCID

SSRN Published Papers

Representative Publications

• Contributor (authored revised opinion in Oliphant v Suquamish Tribe) in Feminist Judgments: Rewritten Criminal Law Opinions (ed. Capers, Deer, & Yung) (forthcoming Cambridge University Press November 2022).
• Structuring Sovereignty: Constitutions of Native Nations (2014) (co-author, with Miriam Jorgensen, Mary Guss, & Sarah Deer).
• Tribal Courts: Tensions Between Efforts to Develop Tribal Common Law and Pressures to Harmonize with State and Federal Courts, in Harmonizing Lawin and Era of Globalization: Convergence, Divergence and Resistance (ed. Larry Backer, Carolina Academic Press 2007).
• A Jurisdictional Quandary: Challenges Facing Tribal Governments in Implementing the Full Faith and Credit Provisions of the Violence Against Women Acts, 90 Ky. L.J. 123 (2001 - 2002).
• Co-author, Implementing VAWA 2022’s Special Tribal Criminal Jurisdiction and TLOA’s Enhanced Sentencing Authority: Lessons from the Pascua Yaqui Tribe (with Alfred Urbina) (2022 revised edition & 2014 edition) (not formally published, but received extensive circulation in PDF).
• Tribal Legal Code Resource: Tribal Laws Implementing TLOA Enhanced Sentencing and VAWA Enhanced Jurisdiction (2015) (co-author, with Maureen L. White Eagle & Chia Halpern Beets).
• Editor, Navajo Law Reporter (volume 1, 2, and 8, including indexing and digesting the court decisions) (v. 8 published 2008, vols. 1 & 2 published 2012).
• General Editor, Mvskoke Law Reporter (an eight volume series, compiling, indexing, and digesting the court decisions of the Muscogee (Creek) Nation from 1832-present) (OWC Press 2006).

Indian and Indigenous Peoples’ Law

• Co-editor, Reading American Indian Law: Foundational Principles (Cambridge University Press 2020) (with Grant Christensen) (released in Europe in December 2019 and in North American in January 2020).
• Reading Indian Law:  Evaluating Thirty Years of Indian Law Scholarship, 54 Tulsa L. Rev. 81 (2018) (co-author, with Grant Christensen).
• Law, Culture, & Environment (2014) (co-author, with Jill Kappus Shaw).
• Contributing Author, Cohen's Handbook of Federal Indian Law (2005).
• Complete List of Publications

Works in Progress

• Author, Writing American Doctoral Dissertations (manuscript in draft)      
• Co-author, Spaces of Indigenous Justice: Applying Theory to Practical Problems, forthcoming Routledge Glasshouse 2023 (with Dr. Jen Hendry) (will be published as part of “Space, Materiality, and the Normative” series) (manuscript in progress)

Education