American Indian Religious Freedom Act, Pub. L. 95-341, 92 Stat. 469

The American Indian Religious Freedom Act, Public Law 95-341, 92 Stat. 469, enacted by the United States Congress in 1978, is the federal statute's own text declaring it the policy of the United States to protect and preserve the inherent right of American Indians, Eskimos, Aleuts and Native Hawaiians to believe, express and exercise their traditional religions. Its strength is that it is the primary legal text itself, the correct source for what the Act actually says rather than a paraphrase of it. Its limit, widely discussed in the legal and religious studies literature since, is that the Act as written created a policy statement without an enforceable cause of action, so it did not on its own guarantee access to sacred sites or ceremonial materials in the way later court cases tested; a claim about what protection the Act actually secured in practice needs the subsequent case law and the 1994 amendments alongside the statute's own words.