Supreme Court Strikes a Hard Blow to Tribal Sovereignty in Adoption Case

[xchrom]

http://www.commondreams.org/view/2013/06/26-1


Dusten Brown spends time with his daughter, Veronica, whom the Supreme Court ruled on June 25 must be sent to adoptive, white parents in South Carolina. (Photo: The Washington Post/Getty Images)

In a 5 to 4 decision on Tuesday, the Supreme Court ruled that the Indian Child Welfare Act (ICWA) does not block termination of a Native father’s parental rights. The court appears to have ruled as if it was deciding the issue based on race—when a better lens to understand the case, called Adoptive Couple v. Baby Girl, is through tribal sovereignty.

First, some quick background on the case and on ICWA itself (fuller background here). Christy Maldonado gave birth to a baby in 2009 whose father, Dusten Brown, is a citizen of the Cherokee Nation. Because of self-determination, the Cherokee Nation decides who its citizens are—and because Dusten Brown is Cherokee, his baby, named Veronica, is Cherokee as well. Maldonado and Brown lost touch by the time the baby was born, and Brown was never informed of the baby’s birth. Maldonado decided to put the baby up for adoption, and a white couple named Melanie and Matt Capobianco took Veronica into pre-adoptive care.

Just to be clear, although the case is called Adoptive Couple v. Baby Girl, the Copabiancos never adopted Veronica. When Brown was served with Maldonado’s intention to place the baby up for adoption, he immediately fought the decision. A South Carolina court agreed that a non-custodial Native father was, indeed a father for the purpose of the case, under ICWA.

So what does ICWA do? The act was created because of incredibly high rates of white parents adopting Native children; in states like Minnesota, that have large Native populations, non-Natives raised 90 percent of Native babies and children put up for adoption. Those adoptions sever ties to Native tribes and communities, endangering the very existence of these tribes and nations. In short, if enough Native babies are adopted out, there will literally not be enough citizens to compose a nation. ICWA sought to stem that practice by creating a policy that keeps Native adoptees with their extended families, or within their tribes and nations. The policy speaks to the core point of tribal sovereignty: Native tribes and nations use it to determine their future, especially the right to keep their tribes and nations together.

[Dreamer Tatum]

1. This phenomenon of adoption at gunpoint has to stop nt

[GeorgeGist]

2. So Baby Girl was the defendant.

[onenote]

3. That is incorrect both factually and legally

I'm not sure what point, if any, you are trying to make, but you're mistaken in characterizing "Baby Girl" as the defendant in this case.

The name of the case before the Supreme Court was Adoptive Couple (Petitioners) v. Baby Girl, Birth Father, and the Cherokee Nation (Respondents). This was an appeal of a decision by the South Carolina Supreme Court in a case entitled Adoptive Couple (Appellants) v. Baby Girl, Birth Father, and the Cherokee Nation (Respondents).

In other words, these were appeals brought by the adoptive couple seeking to overturn an adverse decision (first by the trial court and then by the state supreme court). The original complaint that was led to the decisions being appealed was filed by the Birth Father (on his behalf and that of the Baby Girl) with the Adoptive Couple and the birth mother named as the defendants.

[badtoworse]

4. Once a child is given up for adoption, that should be it.

It's not fair to the adopting parents or the child to give the birth parents the ability to change their mind and sue to get the child back. That's what happened here and it was wrong. The SCOTUS corrected that. Racial considerations should not matter.

[totodeinhere]

6. Technically you are right but I think we all understand what the

poster was trying to say. You could have pointed out their error without resorting to calling them "clueless."

[Orrex]

7. FWIW, "Native American" is a race according to the 2010 US Census

http://www.census.gov/schools/pdf/2010form_info.pdf

[hunter]

8. This has some meaning in my own extended family.

I'm a plain white guy, ancestors fled eighteenth and nineteenth century Europe to the American Wild West for the usual reasons. Before computer databases you were what you claimed.

My wife's family is Mexican Catholic -- Native American, French, Irish, Catholic-Scots. When Protestant USA took the USA southwest her ancestors decided moving south to Mexico was a good idea. And it probably was a good idea given one of my grandfather's negative reactions to me marrying a "Mexican Girl." But he got over that. And like he should talk, one of his Celtic Methodist ancestors married a fiery Irish Catholic girl and they ran away to America to escape the heat.

When my crazy grandma died the funeral director looked at her last requests and asked, "She's Jewish?"

My mom was If anything, she thought she was Wild West Catholic, Mass too far away for Sundays.

But NOT Mormon. Definitely NOT Mormon. My mom's family heritage is "NOT MORMON" even though some of it is. One of her ancestors was a mail order bride to Salt Lake City who decided she didn't like being second wife. So she ran off with a U.S. Government surveyor. Wild West Lewis and Clark Jewish, I now guess. My grandma's very plain wooden coffin has a Star of David on it. She was buried quickly, too quick for me to attend the funeral.

So me and two of my siblings married people with Native American heritage. My oldest kid has an officially Native American S.O., and a couple of our kids' cousins are officially Native American also.

The problem here is that Native American kids have been forcibly adopted by outsiders to suppress the culture. The same thing has happened in Australia to the aboriginal people there.

These kind of adoptions are often where things go wrong. People are people are people, we are all human, but I think it's wrong to remove a kid from any cultural heritage that's not abusive. I think heritage should carry some weight when these things are decided.