## Facts

- The New Mexico Legislature created the Museum of New Mexico in 1909 and vested its Regents with management and control of museum property and policy, including the Palace of the Governors in Santa Fe.
- The Palace’s portal (a covered walkway along the building’s front) is controlled by the Museum and has long been used as a venue for public-facing cultural presentation and commerce.
- For many years, Native American artisans, particularly Pueblo Indians, sold handmade jewelry and crafts under the portal, and some relied on those sales for substantial income.
- As non-Indian vendors increasingly sought access to the portal, conflicts arose over who could sell there.
- The Museum adopted and enforced a policy permitting only “Indians” to sell handmade goods under the portal.
- Paul and Sara Livingston, non-Indian artisans proceeding pro se, sought to sell their handmade items under the portal but were excluded under the policy.
- Plaintiffs filed a 42 U.S.C. § 1983 action alleging the policy violated the Fourteenth Amendment’s Equal Protection Clause by creating an unconstitutional race-based classification.
- Indian artisans intervened in support of the policy, and an Indian Pueblo organization appeared as amicus to support the program’s cultural and self-government-related aims.
- The case was resolved on cross-motions for summary judgment with no genuine dispute of material fact.

## Issues

1. Whether the Museum’s Indians-only vendor policy under the Palace portal violates the Equal Protection Clause.
2. Whether the classification should be treated as racial (triggering strict scrutiny) or as tied to tribal/political status and cultural programs (triggering rational-basis review).
3. Whether the policy is rationally related to legitimate governmental objectives, including cultural preservation and economic support for Indian artisans.

## Decision

- The court granted summary judgment for the defendants and upheld the Indians-only vendor policy.
- The court applied rational-basis review rather than strict scrutiny.
- The court concluded the policy was reasonably related to legitimate state objectives, including preserving and presenting Indian culture at a historically significant site and supporting Indian artisans’ economic well-being.

## Legal Principles

- A classification connected to membership in federally recognized Indian tribes may be treated as political rather than racial for equal-protection analysis, consistent with the framework of Morton v. Mancari.
- When an Indian-related preference is grounded in tribal/political status and remedial or cultural objectives, rational-basis review may apply rather than strict scrutiny.
- Under rational-basis review, a state policy is constitutional if it is reasonably related to a legitimate governmental purpose; courts will uphold such a policy absent irrationality or invidious discrimination.

## Conclusion

The court held that limiting vending under the Palace of the Governors portal to Indian artisans was a constitutionally permissible policy under the Equal Protection Clause because it functioned as a political/cultural preference tied to tribal status and was rationally related to legitimate goals of cultural preservation and economic support for Indian communities.


Livingston v. Ewing, 455 F. Supp. 825 (D.N.M. 1978)