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| Should Baby Veronica have been able to be removed from her adopted parents? The Supreme Court says no. Image: Shutterstock |
A high profile case among Native American tribes was struck
down by the Supreme Court this week involving the custody
rights of a child known as Baby Veronica.
The child, whose father is a member of the Cherokee tribe, was adopted
in an arrangement made by her mother before her birth. Tribal members claimed that the 1978 Indian
Child Welfare Act (ICWA) should have prevented the private adoption from taking
place. While lower courts had ruled
previously in favor of father Dusten Brown and awarded him custody in 2011, the
most recent ruling will likely send Baby Veronica back to her adoptive parents
in South Carolina. It will be up the
state courts, however, to determine placement.
Tribal advocates are
infuriated by the ruling, which says undermines a very important piece of
tribal sovereignty. Cultural
preservation had been severely hurt before the ICWA was passed, because state
run social service offices were taking children off of tribal land and placing
them in non-Indian homes. The statute
had been meant to prevent losing children in the reservation and leaving
custody issues up to the tribal communities.
The court, however, disagreed that the law had the ability to take
children that had already been adopted, in particular to place children with a
father who had previously relinquished paternal rights and had never been in
contact with the child prior to the custody suit.
Justice Samuel Alito
wrote the majority decision with a clear distaste that the power
of labeling a child as Cherokee holds in South Carolina. The girl involved in the case is 1.2%
Cherokee, and was two years old when she was forced away from her adopted
parents into the home of her biological father.
Justice Thomas and Justice Breyer also echoed the sentiments that
Cherokee status did not hold enough power to undo a legal private
adoption. Former Senator James Abourek
of South Dakota, who helped pass the ICWA in 1978, was furious at the ruling
and called it a deliberate attack on tribal sovereignty. Many other tribal advocates feel similarly,
and fear their rights will be undermined again in the near future.
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