 Adoption and Safe Families Act of 1997 |
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This act was intended to help children waiting in foster care move more quickly into safe and permanent homes. However, the timelines set in place to the termination of parental rights has proven to be disproportionately harmful to poor families and families of color.
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| Adoptive Couple v. Baby Girl (2013) |
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In this case, the Supreme Court ruled that a father who was a member of the Cherokee Nation could not reclaim parental rights of his child under the Indian Child Welfare Act because he never had custody of the child.
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| Buck v. Bell (1927) |
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In this case, the Supreme Court legitimized eugenic sterilization laws. Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr. ruled that a Virginia statute permitting the forced sterilization of institutionalized people found to be "afflicted with an hereditary form of insanity or imbecility" was within the power of the State under the Fourteenth Amendment and did not violate the Constitution. Regarding Carrie Buck and her family, Justice Holmes declared, "Three generations of imbeciles are enough."
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| Dred Scott, The Veteran Litigant |
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This teaching module explores how legal actors like Dred Scott possessed knowledge about the law unaccounted for in the Supreme Court record of their cases. This module reads the "Statement of Facts" in Scott v. Sandford alongside contemporaneous unpublished documents to reveal the significant ways Dred Scott directed the course of his own freedom-making.
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| In the Matter of the Petition of Juan Rey Abeita for a Writ of Habeas Corpus (1892) |
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In this case, Juan Rey Abeita petitioned on behalf of his three sons against the superintendent of the Government Indian School in Albuquerque, who refused to allow his sons to return home. The writ was granted, but Abeita later withdrew the petition. Records in the Office of Indian Affairs indicate that the agency pressured the superintendent into releasing the children to avoid an unfavorable legal ruling.
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| Indian Child Welfare Act (1978) |
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An Act intended "to protect the best interests of Indian Children," the Indian Child Welfare Act supports tribal sovereignty and tribal involvement in the welfare of its children. The Indian Child Welfare Act was upheld in the 2023 Supreme Court decision in Haaland v. Brackeen.
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| Interethnic Provisions of 1996 |
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Part of the Small Business Job Protection Act of 1996 was a provision that included a tax credit to help families with adoption costs and to promote the adoption of foster children. Additional provisions in the act intended to strengthen and clarify the Multi-Ethnic Placement Act of 1994.
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| Letter from Thirteen Choctaw and Chickasaw Freedmen Pleading for Federal Assistance in Emancipating their Kin (1865) |
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This letter, formulated by a group of thirteen men who fled enslavement in the Choctaw and Chickasaw Nations, details how Choctaw and Chickasaw enslavers continued to hold Black people in bondage. The letter includes a plea for federal assistance in ensuring the freedom of the authors' family members, an exhibit with the names and locations of eighty people who were still enslaved in the Choctaw and Chickasaw Nations, and an accounting of how self-emancipated Black people were under threat of immediate death if they were to return to either nation.
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| Multiethnic Placement Act of 1994 |
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Part of the Improving America's Schools Act, the Multiethnic Placement Act sought to prevent discrimination on the basis of race, color, and/or national origin when making foster or adoptive placements.
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| Obergefell v. Hodges (2015) |
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In the landmark decision in Obergefell v. Hodges, the Supreme Court found that same-sex marriage was protected under the equal protection clause of the 14th Amendment.
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| United States v. Windsor (2013) |
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In this case, the Supreme Court overturned the 1996 Defense of Marriage Act. It examined the argument of a same-sex couple who were married in Canada and wanted the tax benefits of marriage after one partner died. While same-sex marriage was recognized by the State of New York, the Defense of Marriage Act prevented federal recognition of their marriage.
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| Universal Access to Child Care Fact Sheet (2025) |
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In 2025, New Mexico became the first state in the nation to guarantee no-cost universal child care, regardless of income.
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| Webinar - Color-Evasive Love and Freedom from Violence in (Neo)Liberal Adoption Laws (2025) |
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In this webinar, Professor Kit Myers of the University of California, Merced, discusses race, adoption, and family in the United States with Dr. Donna D. Anderson and her And Justice For All class.
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