The Supreme Court’s Other Racial Preference Case

Racial preferences will be at the Supreme Court again Wednesday, but the issue in Haaland v. Brackeen is adoption, not college admissions. Under federal law, when a Native American child is being placed into an adoptive home, priority goes to parents who are also Native American. That puts tribal interests above what’s best for the child, and it’s a constitutional violation to boot.

Chad and Jennifer Brackeen, who aren’t Native American, have taken in two siblings identified as A.L.M. and Y.R.J. Their Navajo biological mother supports the arrangement. The Brackeens live in Texas, nowhere near the Navajo Nation. Yet they say in their brief that the tribe has sought, among other things, to “send Y.R.J. to live in another State hundreds of miles away with either a great-aunt or an unrelated Navajo couple, rather than with her brother A.L.M.”