Five decades after the passage of the IRA, however, the BIA was still stumbling over how to determine blood quantum. In a 1981 memorandum from Scott Keep, Assistant Solicitor of the Department of the Interior (DOI), to the Deputy Assistant Secretary of Indian Affairs, Keep acknowledged that the Bureau had no administrative procedure for determining blood quantum and was handling such decisions on a case-by-case basis. The memo stated, "[w]e strongly recommend that the Bureau establish, or more accurately re-establish, an administrative decision procedure to determine whether individuals claiming eligibility for IRA benefits actually possess one-half degree Indian blood.
-from Who is an Indian? Searching for an Answer to the Question at the Core of Federal Indian Law by Margo S. Brownell
University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform/Volume 34 Issues 1 & 2/Fall 2000 And
Winter 2001 page 289
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