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The article focuses on recent trends in family law, highlighting an increase in cases involving assisted reproductive technologies, jurisdictional issues under the UCCJEA, and post-decree custody modifications. It also discusses significant Supreme Court rulings, including the upholding of the Indian Child Welfare Act and the rights of a web designer to refuse services for same-sex weddings, alongside developments in state uniform family laws and adoption cases.

Federal Indian policy is rooted in family regulation. Here, family regulation is twofold, comprising: (1) the idea that American Indian families should be curated to be more like their non-Indian counterparts; and (2) the child welfare system, as Dorothy Roberts notes. Overall, family regulation was part of an Indian assimilation project. Since the late nineteenth century, assimilationist tactics encouraged the wholesale removal of Indian children, first to boarding schools, and later to adoptive placements. After decades of abusive family regulation practices, Congress enacted the Indian Child Welfare Act of 1978 ("ICWA") to prevent the breakup of Indian families and promote tribal sovereignty. This Article argues that, in addition to the expressed congressional goal of protecting Indian families, ICWA is a tool of reproductive justice. Beyond the right to abortion, reproductive justice includes the right to have a child, the right to not have a child, and the right to raise a child in a safe and healthy environment. By implementing procedural guidelines to protect Indian family decision-making and child-rearing from state agencies that were, and are, often too eager to promote the settler colonial project, ICWA is a positive disruption of the settler colonial project that defends the reproductive autonomy of American Indian people. As a symbol of the disruption of both historic and contemporary efforts to regulate Indian families through a colonial project that defined families through assimilation, and regulated those it could not, ICWA remains a good policy. Yet, ICWA is under attack like other reproductive rights and the rights of Indian tribes as sovereigns. As such, this Article provides a framework for reproductive rights and explains where ICWA--and more specifically, the needs of American Indians--fit into this framework. Because ICWA does not exist without other attacks on the reproductive autonomy of American Indians and tribal sovereignty, this Article examines the attendant history of the settler colonial project leading up to ICWA, as well as ICWA's goals and mandate, along with what it means to discuss ICWA as a tool of reproductive justice. While opponents frame their attacks on ICWA as a need to "save" Indian children and place them with the "best" families possible, the attacks on ICWA symbolize the ongoing attempts to regulate Indians by eroding their reproductive rights and autonomy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

At the end of its 2023 term, the United States Supreme Court issued a long-awaited decision on the Indian Child Welfare Act, Haaland v. Brackeen. The Court was presented with the direct conflict between three well-established bodies of constitutional law: (1) the right of individuals against racial discrimination, (2) the rights reserved by the states under Tenth Amendment federalism, and (3) federal supremacy over the states in matters concerning Native peoples and nations. These conflicts risk the survival of Native families, communities, and culture as well as the collective rights of Native peoples to their survival as inherently sovereign nations under federal (colonial) Indian law. The Court was presented with arguments over 500 years in the making regarding not only the "theft" of Native children, but also requesting a revisitation and reaffirmation of the fundamental colonial relationship between the United States, the states, and Native nations and peoples on the 200th anniversary of the Court's Marshall Trilogy. The Marshall Trilogy concocted what is known as federal Indian law and limited the reach of the states into Native affairs and resources. This Article examines the Court's majority and dissenting opinions, the parties' arguments, and the dispute's fascinating and tragic back-story. The Article concludes with a discussion of the significant underlying issues not raised, and arguments not made, which bear upon the human rights and future survival of the original peoples and nations who have found themselves within the claimed territory and colonial rule of the United States. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Jodi A. Byrd and Joseph M. Pierce discuss the Supreme Court decisions Dobbs v. Jackson and Haaland v. Brackeen, which upheld the legality of the 1978 Indian Child Welfare Act. In this wide-ranging conversation, the authors reflect on "what Indigenous studies and queer studies can bring together," considering Indigenous dispossession, kinship, settler colonialism, sovereignty, and reciprocity, among many other subjects. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the past ten years, lower federal courts have quietly but regularly abstained from hearing federal claims challenging state court procedures, citing concerns of comity and federalism. Federal courts have dismissed a broad range of substantive challenges tasked to them by Congress, including those under the Americans with Disabilities Act and the Indian Child Welfare Act. Other examples include constitutional claims involving state court eviction proceedings, foster care determinations, bail and criminal justice policies, COVID-era safety practices, and other instances where state courts impact state policy. This paper is the first to argue that these decisions constitute a new abstention doctrine, unmoored from precedent, which I label “the new comity abstention.” The new comity abstention doctrine, currently percolating in the lower federal courts, would bar enforcement of federal rights any time the action could cause a downstream effect on state court proceedings or require a federal court to review state court procedures. If fully adopted, however, the doctrine would amount to a severe threat to federal jurisdiction and a categorical abdication of the federal courts’ role in enforcing fundamental federal rights against a large swath of state action. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses challenges behind the Indian Child Welfare Act of 1978 (ICWA) and mentions topics including the legal history of Native American tribes, the protection of Native American children from neglect, abuse and unnecessary removal from their families, and the impact of the Supreme Court's decision in the case Haaland v. Brackeen on the Indian child welfare system.

The article discusses the importance of using primary source documents to enhance students' understanding of historical events, particularly focusing on the Ghost Dance controversy in the late 19th century. Topics include the roots of the Ghost Dance movement, the response of the U.S. government, and the distortion of facts in popular newspapers during that time.

The article focuses on legal developments in family law in the year 2022, particularly related to issues such as abortion rights, the Indian Child Welfare Act, and various family law cases. It discusses significant legal cases, court decisions, and legislative changes in family law across various states, offering insights into the evolving legal landscape in the family law domain.

The Indian Child Welfare Act has become a controversial piece of legislation since the Supreme Court heard oral argument on the case of Haaland v. Brackeen in November 2022 and released its decision in June 2023. The statute was originally enacted in 1978 to remedy the United States' tragic history of family separation in tribal communities, including removal of native children who were subsequently placed into federal boarding schools or non-native homes by a child-welfare system grounded in white-American assumptions. Congress recognized the vital nature of Native American culture for native children and the importance of native children to tribal existence by including statutory placement preferences. Once intended to protect the best interests of native children, these placement preferences have been challenged as a violation of the Equal Protection Clause by individual states and three white families who attempted to adopt a native child. Under the authority afforded by the statute, during the adoption processes, tribal entities stepped in. They called for the application of the statute's placement preferences to ensure that the native children were placed in native homes and maintained their cultural identity through a connection with the Native American community. Ignoring the purpose of the ICWA, the statute's opponents have argued that this discriminates against non-native families. Named after the local Native American tribes that once called this state "home," Illinois has its own history of profound prejudice and discrimination against native tribes and their children. However, recognizing its part in the forced assimilation of native children into white society, Illinois's decades-old precedent upholds the ICWA as constitutional. Its courts have correctly recognized that the political classification created by the statutory placement preferences is rationally related to the legitimate government interests of preventing native family separation and respecting tribal sovereignty. This Note advocates for the Supreme Court to recognize the United States' active participation in the destruction of native tribal entities and detrimental consequences to native children by upholding the ICWA as constitutional against future equal protection claims. By upholding the placement preferences, the Supreme Court could preserve and promote the vital protections afforded to native families through Illinois's precedent. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Indian Child Welfare Act (ICWA) requires the testimony of a qualified expert witness to support, beyond a reasonable doubt, the termination of parental rights in cases involving Native children. Initially, Congress expressed a preference for qualified expert witnesses to possess intimate knowledge of Native tribes' childrearing norms and practices. However, the permissive language of the 2016 Regulations has deemphasized this preference. Instead, the Alaska Supreme Court has interpreted the 2016 Regulations as requiring an expert to be qualified to testify about the mental, emotional, and physical wellbeing of children, therefore requiring formalized education in these areas of study. This has disqualified many Native witnesses who previously testified as experts based on their firsthand experience and knowledge of tribal norms. This resulted in many parental termination decisions being appealed, and eventually overturned, therefore increasing the time a Native child must wait to achieve permanency through adoption. As the nation awaits the U.S. Supreme Court's ruling on the constitutionality of ICWA's placement preferences, Alaska's interpretation of the 2016 Regulations continues to prevent Native children from achieving permanency. The 2016 Regulations have permitted the Alaska Supreme Court to return to the standard it created under the 1979 Guidelines -- a categorical determination that numerous ICWA termination hearings do not require expert cultural witness testimony. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Parents' rights are influx right now. As loud as some critics are about the strengthening of parents' rights and protections, it seems that those protections are largely meant to serve the beneficiaries of colonialism. Haaland v. Brackeen provides a prime example of these times as beneficiaries of colonialism challenge the Indian Child Welfare Act of 1978 ("ICWA"). When Congress enacted ICWA, it intended that ICWA would be an equitable law to prevent the breakup of the Indian family. For years, ICWA 's opponents have challenged ICWA largely on the grounds that they cannot adopt the children they want through high impact litigation. In Brackeen, the individual parties raise several claims, one of which is the Equal Protection Doctrine. Examining their claims juxtaposed to a brief history of lndian law and ICWA, this Article discusses how the Equal Protection Doctrine stands to disadvantage Indian children, parents, and Tribes as the beneficiaries of colonialism co-opt rights language to pursue their version of equality. In doing so, I open a conversation on a path forward for equity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article analyzes of the best interests of the child standard beyond Haaland v. Brackeen. Topics discussed include background of Indian Child Welfare Act (ICWA), facts and decisions in Haaland v. Brackeen, procedural process covering majority opinion and dissenting opinion and concern around child well-being, other ICWA cases implicating the bests interest of the child, potential psychological harm on children in removal processes and safeguards that could protect children from harms.

The article focuses on the decision of the U.S. Supreme Court in the case Haaland v. Brackeen and the U.S. Indian Child Welfare Law (ICWA). It mentions ICWA's key provisions and explains how it has furthered the best interests of Native American children in the child welfare system by keeping them connected to their families and tribes. It also mentions child welfare system and experience disparate treatment while in foster care.

The article focuses on the decision of the U.S. Supreme Court in the case Haaland v. Brackeen. It mentions state child protection system that incentivizes removal of children from their homes and placement in non-kinship foster homes. It also mentions tribal child protection systems that use non-adversarial healing and wellness models better address Native American families' and systems as access to federal funding.

The article focuses on the decision of the U.S. Supreme Court in the case Haaland v. Brackeen in which non-Native American adoptive parents and several states challenge the constitutionality of the Indian Child Welfare Act (ICWA). It mentions plaintiffs allege that these preferences discriminate on the basis of race in violation of the Equal Protection Clause. It also mentions ICWA exceeds Congress's power over Indian affairs and impermissibly commandeers state governments and courts.

Federal Indian policy is rooted in family regulation. Here, family regulation is twofold, comprising: (1) the idea that American Indian families should be curated to be more like their non-Indian counterparts; and (2) the child welfare system, as Dorothy Roberts notes. Overall, family regulation was part of an Indian assimilation project. Since the late nineteenth century, assimilationist tactics encouraged the wholesale removal of Indian children, first to boarding schools, and later to adoptive placements. After decades of abusive family regulation practices, Congress enacted the Indian Child Welfare Act of 1978 (“ICWA”) to prevent the breakup of Indian families and promote tribal sovereignty. This Article argues that, in addition to the expressed congressional goal of protecting Indian families, ICWA is a tool of reproductive justice. Beyond the right to abortion, reproductive justice includes the right to have a child, the right to not have a child, and the right to raise a child in a safe and healthy environment. By implementing procedural guidelines to protect Indian family decision-making and child-rearing from state agencies that were, and are, often too eager to promote the settler colonial project, ICWA is a positive disruption of the settler colonial project that defends the reproductive autonomy of American Indian people. As a symbol of the disruption of both historic and contemporary efforts to regulate Indian families through a colonial project that defined families through assimilation, and regulated those it could not, ICWA remains a good policy. Yet, ICWA is under attack like other reproductive rights and the rights of Indian tribes as sovereigns. As such, this Article provides a framework for reproductive rights and explains where ICWA—and more specifically, the needs of American Indians—fit into this framework. Because ICWA does not exist without other attacks on the reproductive autonomy of American Indians and tribal sovereignty, this Article examines the attendant history of the settler colonial project leading up to ICWA, as well as ICWA’s goals and mandate, along with what it means to discuss ICWA as a tool of reproductive justice. While opponents frame their attacks on ICWA as a need to “save” Indian children and place them with the “best” families possible, the attacks on ICWA symbolize the ongoing attempts to regulate Indians by eroding their reproductive rights and autonomy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In 1978, Congress enacted the Indian Child Welfare Act (ICWA) to address a national issue--child welfare agencies were removing American Indian and Alaska Native children from their homes and placing them in non-Native homes at alarming rates. Systemic bias against Native cultures fueled these removals, which resulted in Native children being stripped of their identities and tribes struggling to pass on their histories and traditions with a dwindling number of Native children in the community. Under ICWA, however, courts must apply certain procedural safeguards in cases involving families with "Indian children.". In People ex rel. K.C. v. K.C., the Colorado Supreme Court held that child welfare agencies are not required to help families tribally enroll eligible children, even if asked to do so by the tribe itself. The protections of ICWA only apply to "Indian children," which the law defines as those who have been tribally enrolled or those who are eligible for enrollment and have an enrolled parent. This Comment argues that the court in K.C. should have held that child welfare agencies are required to offer families education and assistance regarding tribal enrollment if a child is eligible. First, this Comment argues that the court should require caseworkers to offer enrollment education and assistance because it is simply a reasonable effort to reunify the family, as tribal enrollment materials are often highly accessible, and ICWA protections may help to increase the odds of family reunification. Next, this Comment argues that Colorado law already requires tribal enrollment education and assistance because Colorado's "reasonable efforts" statute requires caseworkers to offer families individual case plans and information about public and private assistance resources--two categories in which enrollment facilitation should be included. Lastly, this Comment argues that helping families tribally enroll children promotes reunification and is in the best interests of children, which are two primary focuses of child welfare agencies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article argues that protections under the Indian Child Welfare Act (ICWA) must apply to human embryos in all U.S. states that reject pure property regimes for embryo disposition. It explores the status of embryo disposition laws including the Arizona personhood disposition regime and parental rights at the dissolution stage and at embryonic stage. It analyzes the interaction of the ICWA with personhood regime states and examines risks posed by personhood states to Indian tribal families.

In 1978, Congress enacted the Indian Child Welfare Act (ICWA) as a remedial measure to correct centuries-old policies that removed Indian children from their families and tribal communities at alarming rates. Since 1978, courts presiding over child custody matters around the country have applied ICWA. Over the last few decades, state legislatures, along with tribal community partners and advocates, have drafted and enacted state ICWA laws that bolster the federal ICWA laws. Despite four decades of ICWA, trends in child welfare demonstrate that Indian children are still vastly over-represented in the child welfare system. Because tribal communities, advocates, community partnerships, and scholars work tirelessly to both ensure and improve ICWA compliance, ICWA still provides some of the best outcomes for Indian children through both family reunification and/or placement within their tribal communities. However, family law often minimizes or mischaracterizes what the Act does. While ICWA is a complex law and even an entire semester may not fully provide justice to the breadth of the Act, this characterization of ICWA creates a stigma around the law. Family law scholars and practitioners can no longer overlook ICWA in conversations and teachings. Stigmatizing ICWA in the classroom contributes to the erasure of American Indians from our society at large and from our classrooms. This allows legitimized racism against this community to seep into both the classroom and the practice area. Accordingly, this article discusses how family law classrooms can incorporate ICWA into conversations on family law as a step in eliminating bias against American Indians in the legal academy and in the profession. This article describes some of the history around ICWA, how family law feeds into the erasure of American Indians in the legal field, some misconceptions about ICWA, and how we can tie ICWA and other issues impacting American Indians into our classroom teachings on family law. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article focuses on the annual Year in Review issue of Family Law Quarterly, which surveys significant 2023 court decisions and state statutory changes across the U.S. It highlights key topics in family law, including the survival of the Indian Child Welfare Act (ICWA) and jurisdictional issues, with contributions from New York Law School (NYLS) editors and others.

This Article describes how the statutory structure of child welfare laws enables lawyers and courts to exploit deep-seated stereotypes about American Indian people rooted in systemic racism to undermine the enforcement of the rights of Indian families and tribes. Even when Indian custodians and tribes are able to protect their rights in court, their adversaries use those same advantages on appeal to attack the constitutional validity of the law. The primary goal of this Article is to help expose those structural issues and the ethically troublesome practices of adoption attorneys as the most important Indian Child Welfare Act (ICWA) case in history, Brackeen v. Haaland, reaches the Supreme Court. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article examines the constitutionality of the Indian Child Welfare Act in the U.S. Topics mentioned include the key provisions of the act, the violation of the act for the anti-commandeering principle, the challenges of federalism, the adoption of Commerce Clause, and the explanation of the non-textual plenary power.

"[T]he Supreme Court has been inattentive, flippant, and disrespectful of Indian rights, and has seen its task as one of finding arguments that will make actions by the other two branches appear legal. Many 'doctrines' have emerged over the course of1 70 years of hearing Indian cases, but the various courts have felt no compulsion to follow precedent, nor have they paid much attention to the historical activities of the federal government toward Indians, often inventing their own version of historical activities of the federal government toward Indians, often inventing their own version of history as they decided each case." [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents the discussion on Indian Child Welfare Act (ICWA) of 1978 redressing abuses by state and federal agencies. Topics include violating the rules governing personal jurisdiction of tribal courts among other things; and considering an "Indian child" lacking the biological criteria for membership.

The article focuses on Indian Child Welfare Act of 1978 (ICWA) was passed as a reparative response to the forced removal of Native American children nationwide from their families and placement into the adoption and foster care systems. It mentions Tenth Amendment's anti-commandeering doctrine protects states' rights by prohibiting the federal government from "commandeering" state officials. It also mentions exception for certain statutes passed under the Commerce Clause.