A section of the Dakota Access Pipeline sits above ground in North Dakota, crossing the Missouri River at the northern border of the Standing Rock Sioux Reservation. As the Army Corps of Engineers prepares to lower the pipeline into the Earth, it faces fierce opposition from protesters who fear water contamination and also want the historically sacred space to be respected, according to a Nov. 1 New York Times article. The protests at Standing Rock are unique in receiving national attention because of their scale, but they are emblematic of larger issues with the way the national government views Native Americans and the reservation system as resources we need not invest in yet can put to our use when it is opportune to do so. The Army Corps of Engineers must heed suggestions to move the Dakota Access Pipeline not only to maintain clean water and preserve sacred Sioux land but also to send a message — that in 2016 we are finally done taking from those who were here before us.

Native reservation lands in the Dakotas have a history of American exploitation. The present-day Standing Rock Sioux Reservation was originally a part of the Greater Sioux reservation, per the Treaty of Fort Laramie in 1868. The Greater Sioux Reservation included the Sacred Black Hills, and the treaty stipulated that in order for any land in the reservation to be ceded, the United States had to obtain the consent of three-fourths of the men living on the reservation. However, in 1877, the Sacred Black Hills were removed from the reservation by Congress without consent, and in 1889, the Dawes Act allowed the government to sell reservation land to white settlers. This act allowed the president to divide Native American land into small parcels and give those parcels to individual natives. Those who accepted the deal were granted citizenship. However, the Dawes Act also granted the government the authority to classify Native American land remaining after the allotments as “excess” lands and sell them privately. Within nine years, the promise of the Treaty of Fort Laramie was broken, and in just over 21 years, the government was parceling out the reservation.

The Dawes Act is what allows pipeline company Energy Transfer Partners to own the land where the Dakota Access pipeline is to be placed. Within that land lie burial grounds and the Sacred Stone camp — an important site for Sioux people. In a Nov. 1 CNN article, a 68-year-old Sioux woman named Faith Spotted Eagle compared the proposed desecration of the area to a hypothetical situation in which the Great Sioux Nation decided on a construction project in Arlington National Cemetery.

It is unfair that sanctified land can be purchased and developed by non-native people when, for natives, purchasing such land as personal property would amount to sacrilege. However, according to Rosalyn LaPier, a member of the Blackfeet and Metis tribes and a visiting professor at the Harvard Divinity School who spoke at Brandeis on Nov. 4, it is common. According to LaPier, there are many types of sacred spaces, and most are not protected according to Native traditions. She gave the example of Chief Mountain in Glacier National Park, as native peoples believed climbing it was wrong, and today, as part of a national park, anyone can climb it.

There is a big difference between allowing protected access to a sacred site and granting permission to desecrate it. The Dawes Act indiscriminately allows for the second to take place.

A solution is within reach. In a Nov. 1 interview, President Obama announced that the Army Corps of Engineers was exploring alternative routes that avoided the Sioux reservation. “I think as a general rule, my view is that there is a way for us to accommodate sacred lands of Native Americans,” said Obama, according to a Nov. 3 New York Times editorial. The president’s support of a plan that accommodates the wishes of all is a breath of fresh air, but it will take more than one man to change the course of this story. The Army Corps of Engineers must refuse Energy Transfer Partners building permits and find a feasible alternative route for the pipeline, which, according to the same Nov. 3 New York Times editorial, is slated to cost $3.7 billion and cover 1,170 miles.

As late fall brings cold to North Dakota, thousands still protest. Many are there because they fear water pollution as the pipeline burrows beneath the Missouri river. “Don’t you drink water, too?” protester Mekasi Horinek asked police officers at the scene, according to the same Nov. 1 New York Times article. Others are there to protect land that has been sacred Sioux grounds for centuries. “One hundred years from now, somebody’s going to go down along the Cannonball River and they’re going to hear those stories,” Faith Spotted Eagle said to CNN. “They’re going to hear those songs. They’re going to hear that memory of what happened here at this camp.”

We cannot have it both ways. We pushed Native Americans to the edges of society, yet we seek out the use of their lands when it suits us. By withholding building permits and denying Energy Transfer Partners use of the area containing Sacred Stone camp lands unfairly seized from the Sioux natives, the Army Corps of Engineers can begin a new American tradition of treating native peoples with dignity.