“This is a great victory for all of us, and a great victory for Indian Country. We will strengthen what we can do,” Navajo President Boo Nigren said on Monday.

in fact, 7 to 2 verdict The report, released Thursday, made little mention of the children who were legally supposed to be placed in indigenous foster care. With the exception of one Navajo girl who is in court in Texas, the judges said their cases had already been settled, and that white families seeking adoption had no racism. He said he had no right to argue.

Instead, the judges focused on rejecting other claims aimed at giving the state greater leverage, such as outright attacks on the constitutional basis of Indian federal law.

“This was never about a child,” Erin Doherty Lynch, senior staff attorney for the Native American Rights Fund, told The Associated Press. “The rebels were essentially trying to undermine the tribes by putting their children in the middle. This is a standard tactic of groups trying to destroy tribes.”

Judge Amy Coney Barrett’s majority opinion said plaintiffs were erroneous in arguing that “states can make their decisions without being precluded by any direction from the federal government.”

“This argument is in direct conflict with the Constitution,” Barrett wrote. “The supremacy clause provides that ‘the laws of the United States… shall be the supreme laws of this nation.’ … end of story.”

Judge Neil Gorsuch spent 38 pages explaining how up to one-third of Indigenous children were taken from their families and placed in white homes or boarding schools for assimilation. In response, a 1978 law requires states to notify tribes when a child is or may be registered with a federally recognized tribe, allowing foster care and adoption. Established a system that gave preferential treatment to Native American families in the adoption process.

“In adopting the Indian Child Welfare Act, Parliament has exercised its legal powers to ensure that Indian parents have the right to raise their families as they wish. The right to grow within, and the right of Indian communities to resist fading into the twilight of history, all in keeping with the original design of the Constitution,” Gorsuch wrote.

The ruling leaves room for another challenge that could fundamentally undermine the federally recognized status of Native Americans and Alaska Natives. The law is based on the notion that indigenous peoples should be treated as a racial group rather than as citizens of a sovereign government with treaty-derived rights. Congressional and Other Federal Actions.

The conservative Goldwater Institute invoked in its brief a “near absolute constitutional prohibition against discriminatory treatment on the basis of race.” say the act “imposing racial categories rather than political classifications” on adopted children and treating them differently “on the basis of their genetics, not their religious, cultural or political tribal identities,” unconstitutionally. there is

But Lynch, who represented about 500 tribes in the brief, told the Associated Press that “there is nothing racist about this law.”

“There’s no mention of blood volume or anything to suggest race. It’s all about tribal citizenship,” Lynch said. “If it were rewritten and understood by the courts to be inherently racial, then literally all other laws concerning tribes would be inherently racial.”

Attorneys Matthew McGill represent Chad and Jennifer Blackeen of Fort Worth, who adopted a Native American boy and are adopting their five-year-old son after a lengthy legal battle with the Navajo tribe. He said he would return to court in Texas. – My younger sister who has lived with me since childhood.

McGill’s Gibson Dunn law firm said in a statement to the Associated Press: “We are bringing this lawsuit for one reason only, to help foster clients and their foster children whose adoptions have been thwarted by the ICWA. It is.”

But if conservatives prevailedin disputes with tribes over oil and gas pipelines and leases, social services, law enforcement, education, contracts, and many other areas subject to federal law that now defines tribes as political sovereigns; could have gained more influence, say Native American lawyers.

“If Indian law was just race-based law, and if it was just affirmative action, nearly every federal law ever passed would be repealed,” Eastern Shawnee said. said Robert Miller, a resident of Arizona State University and a law professor. “You will be dumbfounded – there are thousands of laws.”

Some states have long sought control over tribal matters, especially after a 2020 McGirt Court ruling made clear that tribal jurisdiction still applies to much of Oklahoma. Miller told The Associated Press that he does. “Oklahoma is now shocked to find out that 43% of the state is an Indian country under the federal definition.So I think that is behind it all.”

The Bradley Foundation, based in Wisconsin, known for funding conservative causesAccording to a news release, $250,000 was granted in 2014 to support the Arizona-based Goldwater Institute’s efforts to “restore the right of states to exercise their authority to check federal power.” rice field.

Attorney Mary Kathryn Nagle, a national of the Cherokee Nation in Oklahoma, said she doesn’t think it’s a coincidence that groups opposing the bill are active. 2016-2017 pipeline protests He said, “This luxury law firm, which has a deep interest in the welfare of children in India and invests a lot of time and resources to make money from the oil and gas companies, suddenly finds out about children in India. I decided that I really cared and wanted everyone.” Suddenly I was embroiled in a custody battle. “

this was child welfare Third Supreme Court challenge to the lawJudge Brett Kavanaugh, who supported the majority this time, invited a separate lawsuit aimed at prospective foster or adoptive parents who allege they were denied equal protection because of their race.

Miller believes Kavanaugh won’t get the vote now that Barrett and Gorsuch strongly support Indian law as a cornerstone of the U.S. Constitution, but states will ignore the treaty and foment war. That is one reason the Founding Fathers drafted it, he said.

This historical record is hard for “originators” to deny, Miller said, adding, “There is no principled way to come to the conclusion that this is a matter of race and not of political affiliation with tribal states.” ‘ said.

Still, the battle is far from over, “and probably never,” Nagle said. Ms. Nagle’s sister, investigative journalist Rebecca Nagle, explored the case on her podcast, “This Land.” She said, “That’s the sad thing about being an Indigenous people in the United States. Come on, it’s 2023. And in a way, we’re still fighting the same battle we’ve been fighting since 1492.”

Contributed by Associated Press journalist Harry Golden.