Native American leaders in Kansas celebrate Supreme Court ruling as win for tribal sovereignty

On Thursday morning, Rep. Sharice Davids cried from relief.

As she was walking on to the House floor to vote, she got a notification – the U.S. Supreme Court voted 7-2 to uphold a law that keeps Native American children who are adopted with their tribes.

Davids, a Johnson County Democrat and member of the Ho-Chunk Nation, doesn’t know any Native American who hasn’t been affected by the federal policy surrounding Native American children — from the boarding schools where Native American children were forced to assimilate to foster care policies that removed them from their history and traditions, before the Indian Child Welfare Act.

So she immediately sought out Rep. Mary Peltola, an Alaska Democrat and Yup’ik Alaska Native, to share the moment.

“It’s a recognition of tribal sovereignty,” Davids said. “And, two, it is a recognition of the importance of tribes to be able to maintain connections with future generations.”

In a decision authored by Justice Amy Coney Barrett, the Supreme Court ruled in favor of the Indian Child Welfare Act, a law that gives Native American tribes preference when a Native child is in the foster care system, in order to preserve Native tribes and traditions.

The law was challenged by three families who argued the law prevents non-Native families from fostering or adopting Native American children. Five Native American tribes joined the Biden administration in opposing the suit, saying it would chip away at tribal sovereignty in the country.

“The issues are complicated— so for the details, read on,” Barrett wrote. “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.”

Joseph “Zeke” Rupnick, the chairman of the Prairie Band Potawatomi Nation in Kansas, applauded the the Supreme Court for the decision to preserve native culture.

“Today’s Supreme Court decision upholds the sovereignty of Native Tribes and allows us to continue to give our children, no matter their family circumstances, the opportunity to embrace their Native culture and history – so much of which is learned in our family homes due to centuries worth of attempts to erase us,” said Rupnick, whose tribe is located in northeast Kansas.

Rep. Christina Haswood, the only Native American member of the Kansas Legislature, said in a statement Thursday she was grateful for the ruling.

“I am overjoyed by this news that protections for our Native children are safe,” the Lawrence Democrat said. “The Haaland v. Brackeen court case has loomed over Indian Country with the possibility of going back in history and undoing cultural protections for Native children.”

“This country has a dark history of culture genocide in Native communities through boarding schools, such as Haskell Indian Nations in my district once was.”

Earlier this year, Haswood introduced a bill that would expand the ICWA protections in the Kansas Child Welfare System.

The bill would specifically require the state to cooperate with tribes to ensure the full intent of the ICWA was implemented within Kansas.

Haswood said she introduced the bill in part out of concerns that the federal rule could fall but said she still thinks the bill, or other efforts to reinforce ICWA in Kansas, is necessary.

“I’m realizing we can’t always depend on these policies of the federal government to be there forever,” she said in an interview, alluding to the U.S. Supreme Court decision last year to overturn abortion rights protected by Roe v. Wade.

The bill did not receive a hearing this year. Haswood said it was in part because of a desire to see how the Supreme Court acted to inform how the Kansas law should be written.

In a concurring opinion, Justice Neil Gorsuch nodded to the history of the U.S. government removing children from tribal homes, dating back more than 150 years.

“Often, Native American Tribes have come to this Court seeking justice only to leave with bowed heads and empty hands,” Gorsuch wrote. “But that is not because this Court has no justice to offer them. Our Constitution reserves for the Tribes a place—an enduring place—in the structure of American life. It promises them sovereignty for as long as they wish to keep it.”