The U.S. Supreme Court, defying predictions, upheld the Indian Child Welfare Act Thursday.
By a 7-to-2 vote, the court upheld the law’s preferences for Native tribes when Indian children are adopted, ruling that the law does not discriminate on the basis of race and does not impermissibly impose a federal mandate on traditionally state-regulated areas of power.
ICWA has stood as a landmark law since it was enacted over 45 years ago after a congressional investigation found that over one-third of all Native children had been removed from their tribal homes and placed with non-Indian families and institutions with no ties to the tribes.
The court rejects all of the challenges to the Indian Child Welfare Act, “some on the merits and others for lack of standing,” Justice Amy Coney Barrett wrote in her majority opinion. Justices Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito dissented.
The law was challenged by Chad and Jennifer Brackeen, alongside other non-Native prospective adoptive couples. They argued the law violated the Constitution by discriminating on the basis of race and forcing the state to carry out federal mandates. The high court rejected these arguments, citing over a century of precedent that classifies Native Americans as a political, not racial, group.
Thursday’s decision is viewed as a win to Native American tribal leaders and advocates who argued the law safeguarded Native children and tribal communities.
Background on the 1978 law
Congress, after extensive hearings, found that public and private agencies had taken hundreds of thousands of American Indian children from their homes, sometimes by force. These agencies then…
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