The Supreme Court upheld by 7–2 a racially discriminatory adoption law aimed at preventing non-Indian families from adopting Native American children.
Conservative Justices Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito dissented from the new ruling in Haaland v. Brackeen (court file 21-376) which was consolidated with three other related cases. U.S. Secretary of the Interior Deb Haaland is the petitioner.
The June 15 decision is a victory for the Biden administration, which argued in favor of the Indian Child Welfare Act (ICWA), which was enacted by Congress in 1978 to prevent non-Indian families from adopting Native American children. The statute was a reaction to perceived historical injustices and concerns that Indian children were being removed from their traditional homes and Indian culture and placed in homes that had no connection to their culture. The Bureau of Indian Affairs used to pay states to carry out the adoptions….