On July 28, 2026, the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians Supreme Court affirmed a Tribal Court custody order involving two enrolled Cherokee children and their Norwegian father, following a Norwegian Hague Convention proceeding in which the Gulating Court of Appeal concluded that Norwegian courts lacked jurisdiction and that the underlying parental dispute belonged in an “amerikansk domstol,” an American court.
The Eastern Band Supreme Court opinion also states that the Norwegian appellate court ruling specifically referenced the pending custody action in the Tribal Court before reaching its jurisdictional conclusion. The father sought further review in Norway’s Supreme Court, but the appeal was rejected in HR-2024-340-U.
Kathryn Fort, director of the Law Clinic at Michigan State University’s College of Law, where she also runs the Indian Law Clinic, is an expert on the Indian Child Welfare Act. Congress passed ICWA in 1978 to protect Indian children from unnecessary removal from their parents and tribal communities. On July 15, 2026, the Uniform Law Commission approved the Uniform State Indian Child Welfare Act which is the first attempt to update ICWA’s requirements to match today’s legal practices. Fort answers questions about the Act and its potential impact for protecting tribal families.
In March, Matthew posted the Minnesota Supreme Court’s decision rejecting an equal protection challenge to ICWA for lack of standing. The foster parents have now asked SCOTUS to review that decision. On August 26, the Minnesota AG, Red Lake Nation, the children’s guardian ad litem, the mother, and Faribault-Martin County Human Services filed their brief in opposition.
The petitioners ask the Court to decide the equal protection question that the Court didn’t reach in Brackeen, arguing that ICWA and the Minnesota Indian Family Preservation Act impose race-based placement preferences. They also ask the Court to review a First Amendment claim that denying intervention because the foster parents raised a constitutional challenge was itself unconstitutional.
The brief in opposition identifies substantial obstacles to review that make the case a poor vehicle for resolving the equal protection issue left unresolved in Brackeen while also separately arguing that the equal protection claim should fail on the merits since ICWA/MIPFA use political rather than racial classifications under Morton v. Mancari. It also defends the intervention denial as constitutional.
The Native American Rights Fund has provided legal assistance to Tribes in Alaska since NARF’s founding in the early 1970s. In 1984, NARF opened an Alaska office so it could better serve Alaska Native Tribes and individuals. In the 40 years since NARF Alaska opened its doors, the office has litigated some of the most influential cases in the development of federal Indian law in Alaska. Below is an overview of the foundational work that NARF has done with and on behalf of Alaska Native Tribal governments and people.
For the better part of two centuries, the cornerstone of federal Indian policy was destabilizing and eradicating tribal governments. In the process, federal Indian policy also dismantled American Indian families via child removal. Attempting to equalize American Indians through the practice of assimilation, decades of Indian child removal policies destroyed Indian families. In 1978, Congress responded to these horrors by passing the Indian Child Welfare Act (ICWA), a revolutionary law that was responsive to its trust responsibility to American Indian Tribes. By providing for the best interests of Indian children, heightened protections for parents of Indian children in certain child custody proceedings, and vesting Tribes with a legally recognizable interest in their children’s futures, Congress issued a referendum on equality for American Indians and the very nature of colonialism.
For nearly fifty years, ICWA has governed certain child custody proceedings involving Indian children in state courts. In 2018, a group of state and private actors decided to challenge ICWA’s constitutionality in Haaland v. Brackeen. Among their claims, these parties alleged that ICWA violated the equal protection rights of potential adoptive parents who are non-Indian and that ICWA placed Indian children at a disadvantage. However, just beneath the surface of these claims lies the real allegation: American Indian children should be available for the “good families” or for the “right kind of families” to adopt them. By claiming American Indians had special rights via ICWA, these plaintiffs hoped to re-introduce a version of equality that allowed generations of federal, state, and individual actors to enact assimilationist policies. Ultimately, the goal of equality in this area remains to ensure that “good families” maintain access to Indian children. Contrary to congressional goals, Indian children remain a commodity in demand for “good families” looking to save Indian children.
Blending family law, federal Indian law, and constitutional law, this Article evaluates the fallacy in applying the Equal Protection Clause to claims about ICWA. In doing so, this Article demonstrates that ICWA contains an anti-colonial equity principle that is contrary to the equal protection doctrine—a doctrine that Congress knew could never apply when the matter came to accessing the rights of American Indian families against those of the settlers, primarily because the rights of American Indian individuals are intricately linked to the federal trust responsibility. This Article argues that given ICWA’s character as an anti-colonial statute, applying the Equal Protection Clause to it will only stand to yield absurd results in furtherance of a colonial project that Congress has abandoned. Instead of the equality the Supreme Court promises through its equal protection doctrine, ICWA’s mandate requires equity.
Turtle Talk 
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