For decades, the Indian Child Welfare Act has been recognized by child welfare experts as the gold standard in child welfare practice. Anti-tribal interests have launched a series of legal challenges against ICWA. In Brackeen, the most prominent, ICWA was upheld by the U.S. Supreme Court in June 2023.
In February 2022, the Spirit Lake Tribe, the Turtle Mountain Band of Chippewa Indians, and several individual voters challenged North Dakota’s state legislative map, as unlawfully diluting Native American voting rights.
Despite Native Americans comprising nearly 60% of the total population of Thurston County, officials adopted districts that discriminated against the Native vote.