IN JUNE, the U.S. Supreme Court delivered a decisive victory for tribal nations. In a 7-2 ruling in Haaland v. Brackeen, the court upheld the constitutionality of the Indian Child Welfare Act, rejecting a challenge that University of Michigan law professor Matthew Fletcher described to High Country News as “a broadside against virtually (all) of federal Indian law.”
Passed in 1978, the Indian Child Welfare Act (ICWA) was a response to decades of federal and state policies designed to remove Native kids from their families and cultures. ICWA was built on the principle that tribal nations exist as political sovereigns and that therefore child welfare cases involving Native children should prioritize their placement with Native families, in particular families within the child’s own tribe. The law stands as a distinct marker, both in U.S.-tribal policy and in the lives of those who remember what came before. Reflecting on the effects of U.S. policies on Indigenous families, Chief Judge Allie Maldonado (Little Traverse Bay Bands of Odawa Indians) told HCN last year, “Pre-ICWA practices destroyed my family. But ICWA gave me a family.”
For the past two decades, non-Native parents, states and conservative and libertarian organizations, such as the Goldwater Institute, have mounted legal challenges to the law. The case was brought by a group of petitioners that included several non-Native couples and the states of Texas, Indiana and Louisiana. ICWA was the legal target, but their goal
