By Jan Hoffman, Photo: Allison V. Smith/The New York Times, The New York Times, November 7, 2022
The little girl who will soon be known by the nine justices of the United States Supreme Court as Y.R.J. is now 4 years old. For much of her short life she has been living with Dr. Jennifer Brackeen and Chad Brackeen, a suburban Texas couple fighting with the Navajo Nation to adopt her. Y.R.J.’s birth mother is Navajo. The Brackeens are white.
On Wednesday, the Supreme Court will hear arguments in their case, which could affect not only the little girl’s adoption but those of thousands of Native American children in foster care. Depending on how broadly the justices rule, the outcome of the case, Brackeen v. Haaland, could also start the unraveling of other federal protections that have long been extended to tribes.
That is because the case, which primarily pits the Brackeens and Texas against the U.S. Department of the Interior and five tribes, could turn on whether the Supreme Court finds that tribes are racial classifications rather than political ones — a prospect that the tribes find deeply threatening.
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