Online Master of Legal Studies – Tribal Self-Governance

Tribes are sovereign nations with inherent authority to govern and protect the health, safety and welfare of tribal citizens within tribal lands and territories. There are 574 federally recognized tribes in the United States. Every tribe seeks to exercise broader self-governance over its lands, resources, citizens and relations with other governments.

Strong tribal governments are crucial to the health and well-being of people living within tribes. Tribal governments give structure to their communities by providing the services their citizens depend on, like police departments and court systems as well as social services such as education, health care, transportation and much more.

As the number of programs across all federal agencies operated under self-governance agreements continues to expand, professionals trained in tribal self-governance are needed to implement current federal programs and advance tribal self-governance through a variety of legal and policy mechanisms.

What is a tribal government?

Tribal governments are sovereign governments that operate separately from state or federal governments. Nearly 40% of federally recognized tribes operate under self-governance agreements with the U.S. Department of the Interior, and 132 tribes have self-governance agreements with the Indian Health Service. The number of tribes that participate in self-governance opportunities in these agencies grows each year, and the number of agencies contracting with tribes to effectuate tribal self-governance continues to grow.