The Indian Child Welfare Act
OverviewIn 2023, the U.S. Supreme Court upheld the 1978 Indian Child Welfare Act, a law passed in response to a long history of Native children being separated from their families. The court’s ruling protects the rights of Native American families and tribes, giving them preference in the adoption and foster care placement of Native children. During the 1950s and 60s, Native children were routinely taken from their families by social workers and placed for adoption into white families. The legal dispute is part of a long pattern of tensions between U.S. and state governments and tribal entities over issues of sovereignty.
Objectives
Students will:
- Explain the concept of sovereignty.
- Examine the unique political status of tribal nations in relation to the United States.
- Describe and analyze federal policy with respect to tribal sovereignty in both legislation and Supreme Court decisions.
- Civics & Government
- AP U.S. Government & Politics
- Indigenous History
- U.S. History
Essential Questions
- How do issues of tribal sovereignty and federalism create conflict and/or cooperation within government?
- What does the debate over Native American child welfare translate tell us about conflicts among tribal, state, and federal government jurisdictions?
Additional Resources
Enacting legislation that addresses a wide range of economic, environmental, and social issues based on the necessary and proper clause
Precedents and stare decisis play an important role in judicial decision making.
Ideological changes in the composition of the Supreme Court due to presidential appointments have led to the Court’s establishing new or rejecting existing precedents.
Restrictions on the Supreme Court are represented by: Congressional legislation to modify the impact of prior Supreme Court decisions and The president and states evading or ignoring Supreme Court decisions
Distinguish the powers and responsibilities of local, state, tribal, national, and international civic and political institutions.
Explain how the U.S. Constitution establishes a system of government that has powers, responsibilities, and limits that have changed over time and that are still contested.
Evaluate citizens’ and institutions’ effectiveness in addressing social and political problems at the local, state, tribal, national, and/or international level.
Critique relationships among governments, civil societies, and economic markets.
Use appropriate deliberative processes in multiple settings.
Analyze the impact and the appropriate roles of personal interests and perspectives on the application of civic virtues, democratic principles, constitutional rights, and human rights.
Evaluate multiple procedures for making governmental decisions at the local, state, national, and international levels in terms of the civic purposes achieved.
Analyze how people use and challenge local, state, national, and international laws to address a variety of public issues.
Evaluate public policies in terms of intended and unintended outcomes, and related consequences.
Analyze historical, contemporary, and emerging means of changing societies, promoting the common good, and protecting rights.
Cite specific textual evidence to support analysis of primary and secondary sources, attending to such features as the date and origin of the information.
Cite specific textual evidence to support analysis of primary and secondary sources, connecting insights gained from specific details to an understanding of the text as a whole.
Determine the central ideas or information of a primary or secondary source; provide an accurate summary of how key events or ideas develop over the course of the text.
Determine the central ideas or information of a primary or secondary source; provide an accurate summary that makes clear the relationships among the key details and ideas.
Determine the meaning of words and phrases as they are used in a text, including vocabulary describing political, social, or economic aspects of history/social science.
Determine the meaning of words and phrases as they are used in a text, including analyzing how an author uses and refines the meaning of a key term over the course of a text (e.g., how Madison defines faction in Federalist No. 10).
Integrate and evaluate multiple sources of information presented in diverse formats and media (e.g., visually, quantitatively, as well as in words) in order to address a question or solve a problem
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