Justices uphold law giving Native families priority to adopt Native youth

WASHINGTON-The Supreme Court recently upheld a federal law that requires tribal families to get priority in the adoption or foster placement of an Indigenous child, a law aimed at stopping what one justice called the "nightmare" of family separation.

Advocates have called the Indian Child Welfare Act the gold standard of child welfare laws, but it was challenged by three families and the state of Texas, which claimed the law steps on state's rights and unlawfully uses race to keep non-Native families from adopting Native children.

But the justices, in a 7-2 ruling, upheld the 1978 law in what...