If the government sanctioned it, would that make it right?

I was an anthropology major in undergrad and spent a term in New Zealand studying Maori culture and activism. I became particularly interested in the Maori tribe Ngati Whatua's unprecedented victory in fighting colonial land confiscation. For decades, the government manipulated land ownership and evicted Ngati Whatua from their ancestral lands. In 1977, Maori activist Joe Hawke led a landmark protest against subdivision of land at Bastion Point. This demonstration and others publicized the injustices against Maori people and encouraged tribes to pursue legal action against the government. Since the 1980s, public hearings and lawsuits have compelled the Crown to return land to Ngati Whatua and various other tribes. Many of my professors in New Zealand were members of Maori tribes and many were heavily involved in ongoing litigation for indigenous rights (one of my professors was the chief negotiator for her tribe for treaty settlements). I took kapa haka (Maori war dance) classes, volunteered at the Ngati Whatua's meeting house, toured Bastion Point with Joe Hawke’s brother, and protested Waitangi Day (a contentious national holiday commemorating the transfer of Maori sovereignty to the British).