A new U.S. Supreme Court ruling is a “major and undeniable victory” for tribal communities in Michigan and across the country, according to some of the state’s tribal leaders.
The court rejected a challenge to the Indian Child Welfare Act (ICWA). That 1978 law created safeguards meant to prevent Native children from being adopted out of their tribal communities, and signaled a major shift in federal Indian policy that had historically promoted forced assimilation and family separation.
In Haaland v. Brackeen, the state of Texas and several families seeking to adopt Native children sued to challenge the law, claiming that its aim of keeping those children within their tribes amounted to an unconstitutional racial preference. But the Court rejected that argument in a 7-2 vote, upholding the law in its entirety.
“I think today there's sort of a collective sigh of relief, and quite honestly some happy tears,” said Jocelyn Fabry, chief judge of the Sault Tribe of Chippewa Indians Tribal Court. “ICWA’s just so important for tribes and their future.”
ICWA provides a legal framework with protective rules — like requiring that tribes be notified when a state removed a Native child from their home, and that the state make “not just reasonable efforts towards reunification, but active efforts,” Fabry said. “So it really was a safeguard that helped preserve tribal families.”
Whitney Gravelle, president of the Bay Mills Indian Community in the Upper Peninsula, said she got “extremely emotional” reading the ruling, which she called “a major and undeniable victory for every tribal nation, every Native family and every Native child across the United States.”
Gravelle said ICWA “was really adopted as a countermeasure to the many federal initiatives that focused on assimilation [and] colonization — the boarding school era, the federal Indian removal era. And it was used to reset and reestablish the relationship that the United States had with tribal nations.”
“My own tribal nation is actually no stranger to the initiatives that were implemented by the federal government that focused on separation and removal,” Gravelle continued. “When you had this rapid taking of Native children from tribal communities, what you saw was that it was leading to the destruction of the tribal communities themselves. Because ultimately our most precious, precious resource is always going to be our children, because they are our future.”
Gravelle and Fabry agreed that the ruling also reaffirmed the idea of tribal sovereignty, and “recognizing that tribes are not racial groups, but rather political ones,” Fabry said.
“That’s exactly what it's about,” Gravelle added. “It was about justice, sovereignty, and it was ultimately about acknowledging all that we have given to the United States … all that was taken from us, all that was destroyed, and all that we have left to give and protect, which is our children.”
Governor Gretchen Whitmer also chimed in to voice support for the ruling. “I stand with Tribal Nations in celebrating today’s Supreme Court ruling in Haaland v. Brackeen as a win for Native children and families. In addition to recognizing the inherent sovereignty of Tribal Nations, this decision upholds important federal efforts to right the wrongs committed against Native families in the past and clears a path for us all to continue that work into the future,” she said in a statement.
“The State of Michigan has developed strong government to government relationships with the federally recognized Tribes that call Michigan home," the statement continued. "We are focused on mutual progress through effective collaboration on issues like child welfare that make a real difference in people’s lives. Thanks to today’s ruling that brought together justices across the ideological spectrum, we can continue our partnership and keep getting things done in the best interests of children and families."
