Dunno.

Post #376,958 by Another Scott 6/25/13 4:59:25 PM Reply	Dunno. Sotomayor's dissent makes more sense to me. It's going to be bad for the kid either way, but if the law was written as broadly as she says, then I think one has to go with the father. ICWA commences with express findings. Congress recognized that Âthere is no resource that is more vital to the continued existence and integrity of Indian tribes than their children,Â 25 U. S. C. §1901(3), and it found that this resource was threatened. State authorities insufficiently sensitive to Âthe essential tribal relations of Indian people and the cultural and social standards prevailing in Indian communities and familiesÂ were breaking up Indian families and moving Indian children to non-Indian homes and institutions. See §§1901(4)Â(5). As §1901(4) makes clear, and as this Court recognized in Mississippi Band of Choctaw Indians v. Holyfield, 490 U. S. 30, 33 (1989), adoptive placements of Indian children with non-Indian families contributed significantly to the overall problem. See §1901(4) (finding that Âan alarmingly high percentage of [Indian] children are placed in non-Indian . . . adoptive homesÂ). Consistent with these findings, Congress declared its purpose Âto protect the best interests of Indian children and to promote the stability and security of Indian tribes and families by the establishment of minimum Federal standardsÂ applicable to child custody proceedings involving Indian children. §1902. Section 1903 then goes on to establish the reach of these protections through its definitional provisions. For present purposes, two of these definitions are crucial to understanding the statuteÂs full scope. He probably shouldn't have been able to (apparently) give up his parenting rights and responsibilities over the phone like that. It's seemingly unfair, too, to have the adoptive parents put though this rollercoaster. There should have been more rigorous processes in place before the adoption was approved. But I think Sotomayor's arguments are better. YMMV. Cheers, Scott.
Post #376,961 by boxley 6/25/13 5:30:00 PM Reply	agreed Any opinions expressed by me are mine alone, posted from my home computer, on my own time as a free American and do not reflect the opinions of any person or company that I have had professional relations with in the past 58 years. meep
Post #376,992 by mmoffitt 6/26/13 9:14:09 AM Reply	That'd be a more compelling argument, imo, if ... the biological father was more than 1 percent Cherokee. Hell, my great-grandmother was 25% Cherokee, making me at least as much of a Cherokee as the biological father and I've never considered myself Cherokee. Of some Cherokee heritage, certainly, as almost everyone with family roots in Western North Carolina is, but a member of the tribe?
Post #376,994 by boxley 6/26/13 9:43:03 AM Reply	white mans doin's Any opinions expressed by me are mine alone, posted from my home computer, on my own time as a free American and do not reflect the opinions of any person or company that I have had professional relations with in the past 58 years. meep
Post #376,998 by mmoffitt 6/26/13 10:46:53 AM Reply	I think I follow, but not sure.
Post #377,004 by boxley 6/26/13 11:02:18 AM Reply	lazy answer as you may have guessed the one drop rule wasn't passed by african americans http://en.wikipedia....lood_quantum_laws Many Native American tribes did not use blood quantum law until the government introduced the Indian Reorganization Act of 1934. Some tribes, such as the Navajo Nation, did not adopt the type constitution suggested in that law until the 1950s.[5] Critics contend that because the blood quantum laws required individuals to identify as belonging to only one tribe, despite their ancestry, some lost multiple tribal memberships, and overall numbers of registered members of many Native American tribes have been reduced Any opinions expressed by me are mine alone, posted from my home computer, on my own time as a free American and do not reflect the opinions of any person or company that I have had professional relations with in the past 58 years. meep
Post #377,005 by drook 6/26/13 11:10:52 AM Reply	Ignorant whitey question Before this became an issue for white man's laws, would any indian have self-identified as belonging to multiple tribes? -- Drew
Post #377,007 by boxley 6/26/13 11:51:19 AM Reply	well you have met my kids mom is yupik, dad is a member of a federally recognized tribe that's inupiat grins aside, if a creek marries a choctaw their children would bee fullblood but the bia would "pick" the tribe for them up until recently. In the west because several tribes would be hammered into one res, and people back in the day traveled, it would not be unusual. Crow man, shoshone woman, kids marry a paiute and grandkids party in arizona with navaho's. Indians are a lot like hobbits when it comes to ancestry. They usually know a very extended family tree and are proud to claim relatives of different tribes. Any opinions expressed by me are mine alone, posted from my home computer, on my own time as a free American and do not reflect the opinions of any person or company that I have had professional relations with in the past 58 years. meep
Post #377,008 by boxley 6/26/13 12:01:38 PM Reply	another example http://www.hcn.org/i...uantum/print_view Ryan Padraza Comes Last is a full-blooded Indian, Sioux and Cheyenne on his father's side and Assiniboine on his mother's. He will soon receive his Lakota name: "A Rope." (Comes Last raises rodeo horses and always has a rope in his right hand. He likes to call Ryan his "right-hand man.") But despite his traditional roots and his Native heritage, Ryan may be one of the last of the Comes Last line allowed to enroll as a member of the Fort Peck Tribe. According to the tribal Constitution, enrolled members must be at least one-quarter Assiniboine or Sioux, or a combination of the two. (Fort Peck is home to both groups, who share one government.) This method of measuring Native American ethnicity by percentage is known as the "blood quantum," and most Indian tribes use it to determine who can be admitted. A few use a different method, called "lineal descent," under which applicants need only prove they have an ancestor on the early tribal rolls. Before 1960, Fort Peck used lineal descent as well. Any opinions expressed by me are mine alone, posted from my home computer, on my own time as a free American and do not reflect the opinions of any person or company that I have had professional relations with in the past 58 years. meep
Post #377,009 by mmoffitt 6/26/13 1:01:25 PM Reply	Well, I did follow. Thanks for elaboration. ;0)
Post #377,000 by Another Scott 6/26/13 10:52:53 AM Reply	He's a member of a tribe. The blood fraction doesn't matter, IMO. He has rights in the tribe ("Had Birth Father petitioned to remove this proceeding to tribal court, for example, the state court would have been obligated to transfer it absent an objection from Birth Mother or good cause to the contrary." - p.41 of the PDF, p.5 of Sotomayor's dissent). He's an Indian and so is the daughter - that wasn't disputed AFAIK. AFAICS, the issue is preserving the tribes as cultural institutions, not blood-lines. YMMV. :-) Cheers, Scott.
Post #377,010 by mmoffitt 6/26/13 1:23:04 PM Reply	I understand Sotomayer's point. I'm even sympathetic to it. I agree that preserving the cultural institutions of (in this case) the Cherokee people is an extremely worthwhile endeavor. But, "being a member of the Cherokee tribe" doesn't mean what it once did. "Being a Cherokee" today means that one of your ancestors wrote his or her name down on a list over 100 years ago. That's if they were eligible to sign at the time and agreed to. This excluded a great many Cherokee. The [Dawes] Act allowed for widespread fraud by government officials and legally stripped Native Americans of much of their land by allowing land not allotted to be opened to settlers. The Dawes Roll was the official roll of the Dawes Act and was open from 1896-1907. In order to receive a parcel of land Cherokees had to sign the rolls. In order to sign the rolls a Cherokee had to have a permanent residence in the Cherokee Nation and have appeared on previous rolls. Those who signed the Dawes Roll provided their names and blood quantum and in return were granted a piece of land in the location they desired. In addition to the "Cherokee by Blood" portion of the Dawes Rolls, there were separate rolls for Cherokee Freedman and Intermarried whites living in the Cherokee Nation. ... There were a number of Cherokees who did not sign the Dawes Roll. Some Cherokee who lived in the Cherokee Nation and were eligible to sign the roll and receive land refused to do so. After years of broken treaties and bad policies implemented by the US government, many Cherokees were weary of signing the Dawes Roll and "registering" as Cherokee. Other Cherokees of the day were not living within the Cherokee Nation and were therefore ineligible to enroll. Cherokees who had settled in Texas, Arkansas, Kansas, and Missouri were considered US citizens and were ineligible to sign the Dawes Rolls. Anyone descended from these Cherokee will be unable to enroll in the Cherokee Nation, even if they are able to prove their Cherokee heritage. http://www.allthings..._gene_121100.html So, from my POV, it's not clear to me that the law the biological father depends upon is any more or any less applicable to him than to anyone who has a Cherokee ancestor (and we are legion, let me tell you). I guess what I have a little difficulty here with the dissenting opinion is the presumption that "membership in the tribe" is an indication that an individual is any more or any less likely to be an agent of the preservation of the culture. In light of the fact that a two-year-old was ripped from the only parents she'd ever known and given to a father who was callous enough to dispense with "his responsibility" via a text message, I can't say that I disagree with the majority in this case at least as concerns the well-being of this one little girl.

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