Standing Strong for Native Families
A website from the Native American Rights Fund
The Supreme Court didn’t give a reason it declined to hear the case that began in 2013, when the Oglala and Rosebud Sioux Tribes and three parents in Pennington County brought a class action lawsuit against state Department of Social Services and Pennington County officials.The American Civil Liberties Union, representing the tribes and parents, alleged that Native American … Read more
Carlisle, and boarding schools like it, are remembered as a dark chapter in the history of the ill-conceived assimilation policies designed to strip Native people of their cultures and languages by indoctrinating them with U.S. patriotism. But child removal is a longstanding practice, ultimately created to take away Native land. Although Carlisle is located in … Read more
A state circuit judge didn’t violate the federal Indian Child Welfare Act when she terminated a father’s right to his four-year-old son, the South Dakota Supreme Court has ruled. Read the full article at the KELO-LAND Media website.
A federal appeals court has delivered a major blow to tribes and parents who have been seeking stronger enforcement of the Indian Child Welfare Act in South Dakota.The Oglala Sioux Tribe, the Rosebud Sioux Tribe and three Indian parents went to court more than five years ago, alarmed by the large numbers of Indian children being taken from their families. They … Read more
A lawyer representing two American Indian tribes urged a federal appeals court Tuesday to keep in place the changes a judge ordered for a South Dakota county’s system of removing children from homes in endangerment cases. Read the full article at the ABC News website. Read related coverage at the Indianz website.
The Indian Child Welfare Act lawsuit filed in Rapid City’s federal court almost five years ago is going to the Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals. A three-judge panel is hearing oral arguments in St. Paul, Minn., on Tuesday, Feb. 12. In March 2013, the Rosebud and Oglala Sioux Tribes, as well as tribal parents, brought … Read more
A judge in South Dakota has agreed to pay $50,000 in sanctions in an Indian Child Welfare Act case. Judge Jeff Davis did not admit to “concealing” information sought by the Oglala Sioux Tribe and the Rosebud Sioux Tribe, two of the plaintiffs in the case. But he agreed to pay attorney’s fees for failing … Read more
Around the country, juveniles on reservations are left to languish in cash-strapped facilities that cannot afford to provide the kind of rehabilitative services afforded to most young offenders in the United States. Because some reservations have no juvenile detention centers, offenders often are shipped to facilities far from their homes, compounding the isolation of incarceration. … Read more
The past 11 months have been long, hard months for a Rosebud Sioux mother named Audre’y Eby. Last August, she picked up her twin 16-year-old sons from her ex-husband’s Iowa residence to bring them to visit her home in western Nebraska, and she discovered that the special-needs boys — one is blind and autistic, and … Read more
Five South Dakota tribes have asked the federal government for financial assistance to help operate their own foster care services. … The Standing Rock, Cheyenne River, Yankton, Oglala and Crow Creek Sioux tribes submitted applications Monday seeking federal planning dollars to develop and operate their own programs. The Rosebud Sioux Tribe received one of the … Read more
A federal judge wants to know why some South Dakota state judges are refusing to turn over transcripts in Indian Child Welfare Act cases. As part of a lawsuit filed by the Oglala Sioux Tribe and the Rosebud Sioux Tribe, the state agreed to provide the transcripts. The transcripts are needed to determine whether Indian … Read more
His two girls had been taken by their mother, Heather Shepard, to the Rosebud Sioux Reservation in October in violation of McNutt’s legal custody of the children. Despite a warrant issued for Shepard’s arrest, state law enforcement officers could not intervene since the children were on reservation land. But, sovereignty issues were swept aside by … Read more
Earlier this year, the Oglala and Rosebud Sioux Tribes and three Indian mothers filed a lawsuit in federal court in Rapid City on behalf of all parents of minor Indian children in Pennington County. That lawsuit, Oglala Sioux Tribe v. Van Hunnik, charges that the South Dakota Department of Social Services (DSS), the Pennington County … Read more
RAPID CITY—The alleged abuses of the Indian Child Welfare Act in the Pennington County court system has been called “shocking” by two attorneys. According to Stephen Pevar, attorney for the ACLU, “What happened in the Pennington County Courts is something you would expect in a Third World Country.” Read the full article at Indianz.com.
With the backing of the American Civil Liberties Union, the Oglala and Rosebud Sioux tribes filed a federal class action today in Rapid City against at least two Department of Social Services employees, Pennington County State’s Attorney Mark Vargo and presiding 7th Circuit Judge Jeff Davis. The tribes and others are challenging what they call … Read more
Three Indian parents and two tribes in South Dakota filed a class-action lawsuit today over repeated violations of their fundamental rights during the separation process of children from their families by state officials. The children were removed from their homes without their parents or tribes getting timely, fair and adequate hearings, as required by law. … Read more