![]() "Those scenarios raise significant questions under bedrock equal protection principles and this Court's precedents," he wrote. ![]() Justice Brett Kavanaugh wrote in a concurring opinion that the racial preference issue remains a "serious" question that the court should decide in a subsequent case. Writing for the majority, Justice Amy Coney Barrett said the challengers did not have legal standing to contest whether the preference for Native families to adopt Native children violates the equal protection clause of the 14th Amendment. Two of the six conservative justices, Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito, dissented from the majority. Give us the first right to protect our kids, to raise them, to make sure that they're culturally still connected to our tribe." He added that by siding with the Indian Child Welfare Act, seven of the justices made "sure that we can control our own destiny and all tribal communities to make sure that we can take care of our own kids. "But I think this is a day where ICWA stands and the Supreme Court says, 'You know what, Native people are more than capable of making their own decisions.'" "Sometimes outside organizations will always think they know what's best for you," Navajo Nation President Buu Nygren said. government’s responsibility to continue engaging with tribes on a nation-to-nation basis. Tribes assert that their rights to have precedence in such cases under the law are based on their protected political status, not because of racial identities, and that the decision upholds the U.S. ![]() In addition, they say, the law gives the federal government too much control over states, which typically oversee adoption and foster cases. The states of Texas, Indiana and Louisiana joined in the litigation against the federal government, which was defended by Interior Secretary Deb Haaland, the first Native American to serve as a Cabinet secretary.Ĭonservative legal groups have argued that the law is unconstitutional and illegal federal policy, because, they say, it allows for custody based on race. The couple then sought to adopt his half-sister, whose birth mother is Navajo, but were opposed by the tribe, prompting a legal battle. They moved to adopt him after his placement with a Navajo Nation family fell through. The challenge against the act before the Supreme Court was led by Chad and Jennifer Brackeen, a white evangelical Christian couple from Fort Worth, Texas, who began caring for a 10-month-old Native child in 2016. "What the Supreme Court is signaling here is 'we're not rewriting the Constitution.' Instead, the court is standing on the side of hundreds of years of precedent and a clear message that the attacks on tribal sovereignty are bogus." "It's a huge victory - I'd put it right up there with the victory in McGirt," Nagle said of the narrow Supreme Court r uling in 2020 that affirmed Native American rights in Oklahoma. ![]() Mary Kathryn Nagle, a Cherokee attorney for the National Indigenous Women's Resource Center who filed a brief in support of the law, lauded the decision as a "resounding victory for Indian Country, for tribes and for Native children." Supporters say the Indian Child Welfare Act remains critical to ensuring Native children are bound to their traditions and customs while reversing decades of federal and state governments' forc ed remov al o f them f rom their homes to assimilate them into an English-speaking, Anglo-centric society. Supreme Court, as the court hears arguments over the Indian Child Welfare Act (Mariam Zuhaib / AP file ) ![]() "But I think, for now, we're very satisfied that this was a really solid win for an important law," he said.ĭemonstrators stand outside of the U.S. And so, we've got to stay vigilant," said Chuck Hoskin Jr., the principal chief of the Cherokee Nation, one of the nation's largest Native American tribes. "Reading the decision, there are still some vulnerabilities to not only a future challenge to ICWA but to other statutes and legal principles that really establish a foundation of the government-to-government relationship with the United States and Indian tribes. Ratified after the Civil War in 1868, the clause generally prohibits discrimination based on race, gender and other attributes. Native American tribal leaders and legal experts celebrated a "resounding victory" Thursday after the Supreme Court left intact the federal law that gives preference to Native families in foster care and adoption cases involving Native children.īut some warned that the high court's 7-2 decision to uphold the landmark Indian Child Welfare Act of 1978 also leaves the door open to future challenges - and could threaten tribal sovereignty - because it does not address whether the law violates the equal protection clause of the Constitution. ![]()
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