Austin, TX – On Wednesday, March 22, members of Austin Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) gathered on a busy street, Speedway, on the University of Texas-Austin campus to speak out against the judicial attack on the Indian Child Welfare Act (ICWA).

SDS members chanted, “When indigenous rights are under attack. What do we do? Stand up, fight back!” and “Defend indigenous sovereignty! Defend ICWA!” SDS also passed out fliers and gave speeches about how repealing ICWA would hurt thousands and further erode indigenous sovereignty.

Students also connected this to an ongoing struggle at UT to return stolen ancestral remains currently being held by the university in a warehouse. SDS member Jake Holtzman said in his speech, “These attacks on indigenous rights and sovereignty are not only happening at the federal level. They are also happening locally, right here at UT. The university has been holding stolen ancestral remains and is refusing to give them back to the people of the Miakan Garza Band, who requested that UT return the remains over four years ago. Students and community members are continuing to organize around this to demand that the remains be returned!”

In another speech, SDS member Jules Lattimore said, “This blatant attack on indigenous sovereignty is not an isolated incident, however. In 2022, the unelected Supreme Court ruled in Oklahoma v. Castro-Huerta that the state of Oklahoma can prosecute non-indigenous criminals who committed crimes against indigenous people on indigenous land.”

#AustinTX #StudentsForADemocraticSocietySDS #IndianChildWelfareAct

The crowd, composed of both native and non-native students and members of the surrounding community, rallied outside of the student union before marching through campus to the administrative building.

The event was organized by the university’s American Indian Student Cultural Center (AISCC) as well as the UMN chapter of Students for a Democratic Society (SDS).

ICWA was signed into law in 1978 and is a vital piece of legislation upholding tribal sovereignty and indigenous control of the future of their own children. AISCC member Carmen Pitt, a third-year student at the university’s American Indian Studies department, explained the legal background of ICWA, which ensures that matters of adoption and foster care of native children are under the jurisdiction of tribal governments.

Before ICWA was signed into law, the vast majority of native children in the foster system were placed into non-native families, against the wishes of indigenous communities and the children themselves, who were removed from their own culture.

The future of ICWA is currently in the hands of the Supreme Court, which may rule against it. ICWA being overturned would be disastrous for indigenous communities across the United States, which would no longer have control over the futures of their own children

Pitt described the effort by reactionaries to eliminate the ICWA as an effort to “to renew colonialism and warfare against native peoples.” She went on to point out that the repeal of ICWA “would further weaken – if not potentially eradicate the legal jurisdictions that tribal nations hold not over citizens, but the land.”

Melanie Yazzie, a faculty member of the University of Minnesota’s American Indian Studies department, stated, “It’s simply another commodification, another theft, of everything. Have you not taken enough from indigenous people?”

The potential repeal of ICWA also has numerous consequences for other areas of the peoples’ struggles. CJ McCormick, a member of the Climate Justice Committee, explained the connections between climate justice and the struggle for indigenous sovereignty, and how the attacks on indigenous sovereignty will exacerbate the climate crisis and bring out ecological disaster.

McCormick further confirmed the solidarity shared by progressive organizations in the struggle for indigenous liberation: “We stand here in solidarity with all of you and we firmly believe that defending native lives means defending every human life as climate change becomes more and more of a growing crisis.”

Other speakers included Delaney Anderson from the Circle of Indigenous Nations, and Perry Fernands, who both denounced the injustice of eliminating the ICWA and the importance of solidarity with indigenous people.

Sorcha Lona, a member of SDS, also confirmed SDS’s stand in solidarity in this struggle, stating, “There is hope for the future, there is revolutionary action that will build a better future.”

#MinneapolisMN #IndigenousPeoples #UniversityOfMinnesota #IndianChildWelfareAct

Milwaukee, WI – On the evening of December 10, more than 40 people packed into the community room at Zao MKE Church to listen to a lineup of speakers commemorating the 64th International Human Rights Day. A highlighted speaker was Sarah Wunderlich of the Oneida Nation who joined the program to talk about the current Supreme Court case trying to undermine the Indian Child Welfare Act (ICWA), including some history about the system of boarding schools, the effects this still has on the present, and how these things relate to the broader struggle for indigenous rights.

“General Richard Pratt coined the phrase, ‘Kill the Indian, save the man,’ you know, ‘take their children away.’ That’s our future. As Oneida people, as Haudenosaunee people, we don’t just make decisions for ourselves or for our children. We make decisions for the seventh generation,” Wunderlich said. “They tried to take that from us, and they were successful to some extent, but not completely because we’re still here.”

Wunderlich continued, “After boarding schools ended, other things took their place. The next thing they start doing is sterilizing our women without them knowing it. Then, when what was happening came to light, they just started taking our children. Social workers, ISC, they would come in and say, ‘You’re poor, you’re unfit,’ ‘You live on the reservation, you’re unfit.’ Up to 30% of our kids were lost to the foster system. It’s all under the same system – ‘Kill the Indian to save the man.’ You take our language away, you take our families away, you take away our connection to Mother Earth.”

“If there came to be an enrolled indigenous child that needed to be adopted, ICWA made it so that that child would be kept within the same nation, or if no one could be found, at least with other indigenous people,” said Wunderlich. “Gibson Dunn are the attorneys for Chevron, Walmart. What is their interest with a custody case like with the Brackeens? That’s been the big question. Now they’re saying ICWA is unjust, that ICWA is racist against white people. So they wanna do away with it, that it shouldn’t be decided at the federal level but by the states. If you start looking at ICWA and some of its foundational pieces, it touches on fundamental issues of sovereignty. It’s not just about Indian babies, it's about sovereignty and our right to self govern.”

Wunderlich went on, “ICWA is personal for me. I have my boy here, and my baby at home, but they’re my sister’s kids. I have them because of ICWA. They’re not living with strangers, they’re not living in a strange town; they’re at home in their community, right where they belong. So it’s not just my sovereignty; it’s my children. My kids go to tribal school, they participate in tribal ceremonies, they learn their language, but someone’s gonna come in and try to take that away from them because they thought they were treated unjustly. They’re going to try to talk to indigenous people about being treated unjustly.”

Patricia Fish of the Freedom Road Socialist Organization told the crowd, “Everyday, Americans battle police brutality, the oppression of indigenous peoples, immigrants are demonized if they aren’t white, hate crimes against the LGBTQ community happen on a daily basis, the U.S. has taken away a person’s right to bodily autonomy and the U.S. has some of the weakest labor protections for its workers. I could go on and on about the human rights violations that occur in the U.S., but that won’t solve anything.”

Fish also stated, “All of us here know that the enemy is capitalism. Capitalism doesn’t care about people, it cares about profit and nothing is more profitable than oppressing people. What we need to do is to organize, to stand up and to fight back!”

The program wound up with the presentation of the very first Lucille Berrien Humanitarian Award, named in honor of one of Milwaukee’s most dedicated community organizers. Brian Verdin, another long-time Milwaukee organizer in the movements for peace and justice and also longtime associate of Berrien herself, was the inaugural recipient.

Other organizations present that put forward speakers included the Milwaukee Anti-war Committee, Reproductive Justice Action – Milwaukee, the Milwaukee Alliance Against Racist and Political Repression, Students for a Democratic Society at UW-Milwaukee, Veterans for Peace, and the Wisconsin Coalition to Normalize Relations with Cuba. Sponsor organizations included Peace Action of Wisconsin, Assange Defense MKE, Jewish Voice for Peace, Never Again MKE, and Students for Justice in Palestine at UW-Milwaukee.

#MilwaukeeWI #IndigenousPeoples #InternationalHumanRightsDay #IndianChildWelfareAct