[ad_1]
The Supreme Court on Thursday rejected challenges to a law meant to preserve Native American families and culture.
In a 7-2 decision, the court upheld the Indian Child Welfare Act, a 1978 law that seeks to keep Native American children with their extended family, another family in the tribe, or a family from another tribe in cases of foster care and adoption. Its passage followed a sordid history of states and the federal government separating them.
“The issues are complicated,” Justice Amy Coney Barrett wrote for the majority. “But the bottom line is that we reject all of petitioners’ challenges to the statute, some on the merits and others for lack of standing.” Justices Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito dissented.
Challenging the law at the Supreme Court was a white evangelical Christian couple from Texas, Chad and Jennifer Brackeen. Backed by Texas and other right-wing institutions, they argued, among other things, that the law violated equal protection by drawing racial distinctions. But tribes, supported by the Biden administration, pointed out that tribal membership is a political, not racial, classification.
The case raised broader concerns about tribal sovereignty and was argued during the same term in which Republicans tried to further dismantle affirmative action and voting rights at the Supreme Court. All of these cases lend themselves to an ignorant “colorblind” view of the Constitution, with the GOP hoping to flatten laws that help nonwhite people without accounting for the racist history that prompted their passage.
This is a breaking news story. Check back for updates.
Subscribe to the Deadline: Legal Blog newsletter for weekly updates on the top legal stories, including news from the Supreme Court, the Donald Trump investigations and more.
[ad_2]
Source link
