Adoptive Couple v. Baby Girl

Summary

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Episode Overview

Podcast: Radiolab (WNYC Studios)
Episode Title: Adoptive Couple v. Baby Girl
Date: October 3, 2025
Hosts: Jad Abumrad, Robert Krulwich, Lulu Miller, Latif Nasser
Producer: Tim Howard

This episode delves into the emotional and legally complex Supreme Court case Adoptive Couple v. Baby Girl, exploring how a custody battle over a young Cherokee girl named Veronica became a critical test of the Indian Child Welfare Act (ICWA) and Native American sovereignty. Using intimate interviews and historical investigation, Radiolab unpacks layers of personal pain, tribal history, legal nuance, and the far-reaching implications of this case for over 3 million indigenous people.

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Key Discussion Points and Insights

1. The Personal Story: A Family Torn Apart

[03:05–08:20]

• Matt and Melanie Capobianco: A white, middle-class South Carolina couple struggle with infertility and pursue adoption.
• Chrissy Maldonado: Hispanic birth mother in Oklahoma, already has children, chooses the Capobiancos as adoptive parents for her newborn daughter.
• Veronica ("Boss Lady"): The baby is adopted by the Capobiancos, but after two years, her Cherokee biological father, Dustin Brown, enters the picture—leading to a wrenching custody transfer under the ICWA.

Quote (Melanie Capobianco, 07:37):
“We told her we loved her and she said, ‘I love you, mommy, and I love you, daddy.’ And... that was the last time we were able to be in touch.”

2. Why Did the Case Become a Supreme Court Battle?

[05:12–06:16]

• The Key Law—ICWA (1978): Designed to prevent the forced removal of Native American children from their families/tribes and preserve tribal culture.
• Custody preference shifts to biological Native parent/tribe—even after Dustin signed away parental rights.

Quote (Tim Howard, 05:56):
“It just seemed odd at first that this would even be a Supreme Court case. It seemed more like a straightforward custody case. But when you dig in...there’s a lot going on here.”

3. Origins and Reasons for the Indian Child Welfare Act

[09:00–16:56]

• Historical Trauma: Mass removals of Native children through the 1960s, often for reasons of poverty or non-nuclear family arrangements.
• Systemic Bias and Top-Down Projects: Programs intentionally placed children in white families, leading to the loss of cultural continuity for tribes.
• Statistical Shock: 1/3 of Native children were in non-Indian out-of-home placements.

Quote (Bert Hirsch, 13:15):
“About one third of Indian children were in out of home placements in non-Indian settings. 25 to 35% of Indian children nationwide.”

• ICWA Solutions:
  • 1st preference: Immediate family
  • 2nd: Other tribe members
  • 3rd: Other American Indian families
  • 4th: Non-Native homes

4. Arguments for and Against ICWA

[18:59–23:45 and 31:00–34:00]

• ICWA Supporters: Argue it’s vital for combating historical erasure and cultural destruction.
• Opponents (Adoptive Couple, lawyers): Argue it can inflict pain on individual children/families and is sometimes “out of place” when no Indian family is being preserved.
• Personal Impact: Mark Fidler (Capobianco attorney, Native American himself) discusses a precedent where strict application of ICWA led to tragic outcomes for a child, influencing his perspective.

Quote (Mark Fidler, 22:51):
“My personal opinion is that ICWA has outlived its usefulness and causes more problems than it solves.”

5. Dustin Brown’s Perspective and Actions

[24:29–30:20]

• Dustin shares feelings of confusion and regret, describing how he believed he was signing custody to the birth mother, not consenting to an adoption.
• Once aware of the adoption, he immediately sought legal recourse and maintained consistently he wanted to raise his daughter.

Quote (Dustin Brown, 30:09):
“I never, never once did I want to give up on my daughter. Never once did I want to give her up.”

• The argument that any non-Indian father would have lost parental rights at this point, but Dustin's tribal status was crucial.

6. Legal and Cultural Definitions of Tribal Citizenship

[32:31–33:02]

• The controversy over “blood quantum”—Dustin is just 2% Cherokee, Veronica about 1%, but Cherokee law is based on lineage, not percentage.
• Legal scholars and tribal officials warn that challenging ICWA on racial grounds could undermine all Indian law and tribal sovereignty.

Quote (Kirsty Nemo, 32:57):
“Being a member of the Cherokee Nation is like being a member of the United States. You are a citizen of the nation.”

7. Potential Broader Implications: Sovereignty and Law

[33:02–34:46]

• If ICWA were struck down as “race-based,” it could unravel much of federal Indian law, affecting tribal courts, police, land, and education.
• Supreme Court generally avoids broad revolution—likely to “rule narrowly,” but the threat remains.

8. Personal Glimpses: Veronica with Her Father

[35:10–36:12]

• A scene with Veronica and Dustin in Oklahoma, showing her adaptation and happiness—raising difficult questions about “best interest” standards and the deep emotional toll.

9. Supreme Court Decision and Its Aftermath

[38:01–45:13]

• Decision [38:08]:
  • Supreme Court rules 5–4 for the adoptive couple, against Dustin Brown.
  • Ruling: ICWA does not apply because Dustin lacked “continuing custody” (never lived with Veronica as family).
  • Kicks case to lower state courts.

Quote (Marcia Zug, 38:45):
“...the court upholding the termination of his parental rights.”

• Unresolved Legal Chessboard:
  • Potential for further filings by paternal grandparents or tribe.
  • ICWA’s placement preferences might still factor in next steps.
  • Possibility for Dustin to become adoptive father considered “insane” by experts.

Quote (Jad Abumrad, 42:30):
“Damn, this is complicated. I thought that they were supposed to get less complicated.”

• Larger Legal Seeds Sown:
  • Justice Alito in the ruling foregrounds Veronica’s 1.2% Cherokee blood, suggesting continued judicial skepticism toward race-based tribal law.
  • Fears voiced about future legal rollback of Indian sovereignty.

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• “What is a culture except, you know, the ideas and traditions that you pass on to your kids?... If you are hemorrhaging your children, then you’re going to disappear.”
  — Marcia Zug ([15:27])

• “I mean, everybody says that I gave her up, never wanted to.”
  — Dustin Brown ([30:09])

• “These roadblocks are there for a reason. We went over this earlier, but you know, basically people are being manipulated out of their kids.”
  — John Nichols, lawyer ([31:11])

• “If the Supreme Court ends up deciding that ICWA is unconstitutional because it really is race based... it calls into question every single federal Indian law. Ow. There goes Indian law.”
  — Marcia Zug ([33:23])

• “You dud swimmer.” — Veronica, (young child’s voice, lightens heavy moment, [37:59])

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Timeline of Important Segments

• [03:05] — Introduction to the Capobianco family and Veronica's adoption
• [05:12] — TV narrative: child taken from adoptive parents under ICWA
• [09:00]–[15:27] — Historical context: mass removals, creation of ICWA
• [19:52] — Tribal perspective: stakes for Native communities
• [21:01] — Capobianco lawyer criticizes ICWA
• [24:32]–[30:20] — Interview: Dustin Brown recounts his side of the custody story
• [32:31] — Debate on blood quantum, citizenship, and sovereignty
• [38:08] — Supreme Court ruling: against Dustin Brown, analysis of decision
• [44:11–45:13] — Discussion of Supreme Court opinion’s implications for future tribal law
• [45:25–46:41] — Update: Veronica returned to Capobiancos, ICWA survives challenges (as of 2025)

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Current Status (2025 Update)

• Veronica: Returned to Capobiancos in South Carolina after family court ruled against Dustin Brown, who is no longer pursuing custody.
• ICWA: Upheld multiple times by the Supreme Court (most notably in 2012, 7–2 decision); continues to face legal challenges, latest pending in Minnesota Supreme Court.

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Radiolab’s Adoptive Couple v. Baby Girl episode masterfully blends investigative storytelling and nuanced conversation, making clear how one family’s heartbreak resonates with centuries of Native history and the future of tribal justice in America.

Transcript

[Radiolab Announcer]

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[Jad Abumrad]

Hey, it's Latif. This summer, the federal government defunded public media in America. But while we may have been defunded, we have not been defeated because we know that our listeners who care so much about what we do, have our back. The best way to help right now is to become a member of the Lab. Membership starts at just $7 a month, comes with ad, free listening and many other perks. If you join right now, we'll send you a new beautiful jumbo tote bag. Tote bags are kind of like our love language here in public radio. To see the tote and support Radiolab, please go to Radiolab.org join and thank you for standing with us when we need you most.

[Radiolab Announcer]

Hey, Radiolab, this is Lulu. Today we're bringing you a story that begins with a very personal heartbreak. One that, when you examine it, pull it up, you see is attached to this web of complex laws and decisions. It's this one very personal story with the potential to affect 3 million people. Just a note that we originally reported this back in 2013, and in it, people use the word Indian to refer to indigenous Americans. That, of course, is a term that some folks who are indigenous use to describe themselves, but not all. So we wanna acknowledge that one term is being used here to describe a huge, culturally diverse group of people. I'm very excited for you to hear this piece, which, as you'll see, is still just as relevant today. So here we go. Adoptive couple V. Baby girl.

[Tim Howard]

Wait, you're listening. Okay.

[Various Interviewees/Contributors]

All right. Okay.

[Tim Howard]

All right. You're listening to Radiolab Radio from wnyc. Rewind.

[Jad Abumrad]

Hey, I'm Jad Abumrad.

[Robert Krulwich]

I'm Robert Krylwich.

[Jad Abumrad]

This is Radiolab, the podcast. And today on the podcast, we are gonna venture into new territory for us. We have the story of a little girl who became a very, very big deal.

[Robert Krulwich]

How big a deal did this little girl become?

[Jad Abumrad]

A very big deal to about 500 something nations.

[Robert Krulwich]

There aren't 500 in the.

[Jad Abumrad]

No, there are.

[Robert Krulwich]

Look, I've seen the front of the un.

[Tim Howard]

No, there are.

[Marcia Zug]

Just.

[Jad Abumrad]

Look. Okay, it's gonna make sense in about 30 seconds. That was just a. That's a tease that isn't ultimately even that important to the story. So just. Just you and I are gonna sit right here and behave ourselves. And Tim Howard, our intrepid producer, is gonna tell us this story.

[Tim Howard]

So I first heard about this story. I saw it listed on the Supreme Court docket for cases that they were gonna be hearing this spring.

[Marcia Zug]

Well, the name of the case is Baby Girl versus Adoptive Couple.

[Tim Howard]

Actually, in strict legal parlance, it's called Adoptive Couple v. Baby Girl.

[Marcia Zug]

So it's not a particularly catchy name, I gotta say.

[Tim Howard]

It's a Weir to. It's hard to picture.

[Marcia Zug]

Yeah.

[Tim Howard]

So this is Marcia Zug, associate professor.

[Marcia Zug]

Of law at the University of South Carolina.

[Tim Howard]

And she wrote about this case in Slate. And it stood out to me because, you know, it just seemed odd at first that this would even be a Supreme Court case. It seemed more like a straightforward custody case.

[Marcia Zug]

Right.

[Tim Howard]

But when you dig in.

[Marcia Zug]

Yeah, there's a lot going on here.

[Jad Abumrad]

Crusades, text messages, state law, heirs, children.

[Robert Krulwich]

Supreme Court, Christopher Columbus.

[Tim Howard]

Christopher Columbus. And it is not straightforward at all.

[Jad Abumrad]

Apparently not.

[Tim Howard]

So let me walk you through it the way that I learned about it. The story begins with a couple, Matt and Melanie Capobianco.

[Marcia Zug]

They are a couple who live down here in South Carolina.

[Tim Howard]

He's a technician at Boeing. She's a developmental psychologist.

[Marcia Zug]

Nice middle class white couple.

[Tim Howard]

They're in their late 30s and they really wanted to have a kid.

[Marcia Zug]

They had gone through infertility problems.

[Tim Howard]

It wasn't working out.

[Marcia Zug]

So eventually and they decided to adopt.

[Tim Howard]

Enter a woman named Chrissy Maldonado. She lives about 1,000 miles away, I.

[Marcia Zug]

Believe she's in Oklahoma.

[Tim Howard]

She's in her 20s, already has a couple kids.

[Marcia Zug]

She's pregnant and decides that she wants to give the baby up for adoption. And she picks the Capo Biancos. And everyone seems happy.

[Tim Howard]

The Cabo Biancos get the baby and they name her Veronica. We used to call her Boss Lady. Not a lot.

[Marcia Zug]

Most of the time our family called her that.

[Tim Howard]

Boss Lady.

[Marcia Zug]

Bosses, everybody around.

[Tim Howard]

This is Matt and Melanie Capobianco. But you were happy to do. She told you to do, because it's just the poster child for a proud father, you know, but it's just gone as. As wrong as it could have possibly gone. This is basically how it unfolded on TV news rack in session on the.

[Marcia Zug]

Docket today, a young child ripped from the arms of the only parents she's.

[Tim Howard]

Ever known and turned over to the Native American biological father she has never met.

[Marcia Zug]

A man Veronica had never even met.

[Tim Howard]

What happened is when Veronica was two.

[Robert Krulwich]

Her bo biological dad turned up seemingly.

[Tim Howard]

Out of nowhere and according to these clips, hadn't been around for two years, had abandoned the child. And now he's asking for custody and he gets it. And the court is making them stand.

[Robert Krulwich]

By and just let it happen.

[Jad Abumrad]

Wait, why?

[Tim Howard]

Well, it's mainly because of this law.

[Marcia Zug]

The Indian Child Welfare Act. The 1978 Indian Child Welfare Act.

[Tim Howard]

Dustin, the dad, he's Cherokee. He's part of the Cherokee Nation, so that makes his daughter Veronica eligible to be Cherokee. And the law is designed to keep Indian families together. It gives preference to Indian kids staying with Indian parents. So even though he'd actually signed papers agreeing to the adoption, he was able to invoke this law and get custody of Veronica.

[Jad Abumrad]

He signed his custody away and he was able to then use his Cherokee ness to reverse the rights he signed away.

[Tim Howard]

Just hang on. This is all going to make sense.

[Jad Abumrad]

Okay, but he takes the kid is what you're saying.

[Tim Howard]

Yeah. New Year's Eve 2011, with cameras rolling, Dustin Brown drives his pickup truck into Charleston. Matt and Melody capo bianco clutch to.

[Radiolab Announcer]

Two year old Veronica.

[Marcia Zug]

This could possibly be the last time.

[Radiolab Announcer]

They hold their baby as her mom and dad.

[Tim Howard]

And that evening Veronica is transferred to Dustin.

[Marcia Zug]

I didn't feel like we had enough time for her to be not afraid.

[Tim Howard]

When she, we left her with strangers.

[Marcia Zug]

Yeah. When she's, I mean to complete strangers and I can't imagine that she's not going to be terrified.

[Tim Howard]

And as Dustin gets into the truck holding his two year old daughter for the first time, a reporter asks him, do you think this is in her best interest? And this is all you hear from him?

[Dustin Brown]

I think so.

[Jad Abumrad]

We need to give her a thank you.

[Radiolab Announcer]

Have you ever seen the child before?

[Marcia Zug]

They declined any further comment.

[Tim Howard]

On camera he gets into the truck with Veronica and they drive away back to Oklahoma. Can I ask you when was the last time that you spoke with Veronica? The day after. The day after the transfer.

[Dustin Brown]

Transfer.

[Tim Howard]

A phone call. Yeah, we spoke to her for about two minutes. We told her we loved her and she said, I love you mommy, and I love you daddy.

[Dustin Brown]

And I don't know, just a few minutes.

[Tim Howard]

But that was it. That was the last time we were able to be in touch. And that was 16 months ago.

[Jad Abumrad]

And how long was Veronica with them again before this happened?

[Tim Howard]

About two years.

[Jad Abumrad]

Oh man, that's hard.

[Tim Howard]

Yeah. And you know, when I first heard about this case, that's basically the only Way I thought of it, you know, is just, that's a crazy injustice. That's basically all I saw in it.

[Marcia Zug]

I mean, if you're someone who has no background in this, then you see a case like the baby Veronica case, and you're like, whoa, where is this coming from? How can this possibly be?

[Tim Howard]

Okay, that's Marcia Zugg again. And her article for Slate kind of caught me off guard because the title was Doing what's Best for the Tribe. Two year old Veronica was ripped from the only home she's ever known. The court made the right decision. Yeah. So I called up to ask her, like, what do you mean by that?

[Marcia Zug]

So one of the things that's, I think, important to realize is that the problems that ICWA was intended to address didn't stop happening that long ago.

[Tim Howard]

And this is where the story turned into the biggest rabbit hole I've ever fallen into. What did she tell you? I mean, Marcia basically said, the only way you can begin to wrap your mind around what's right and what's wrong in this story is to go back to the 60s hurt. How you doing? Good. How are you? Tim. Great to meet you. Same here.

[Robert Krulwich]

And to this guy, Bert Hirsch, I'm a lawyer.

[Tim Howard]

He lives in Long island now, which is where I visited him. But in 1967, the fall of 67.

[Robert Krulwich]

I was on the staff of the association on American Indian affairs, sort of.

[Tim Howard]

A legal advocacy group for American Indians. And he traveled all over, working with different tribes. And one day he gets a phone call from this guy, Louis Goodhouse, the.

[Robert Krulwich]

Tribal chair of the Devil's Lake Sioux tribe in North Dakota.

[Tim Howard]

And this guy says, I really need your help.

[Robert Krulwich]

He said, there's a child, a Devil's.

[Tim Howard]

Lake kid, one of ours, that was just abruptly taken away by social workers.

[Robert Krulwich]

The Benson County, North Dakota, Social Services Agency came in and they took little Ivan Brown away from his grandmother.

[Tim Howard]

He was 6. What was their stated reason for taking Ivan away?

[Robert Krulwich]

Neglect.

[Jad Abumrad]

Because. What, because Grandma wasn't. Wasn't around?

[Tim Howard]

No, actually, Bird says that the social workers were looking for that classic nuclear family.

[Robert Krulwich]

Biological mother, biological father, children.

[Tim Howard]

So when they saw him with an older relative, but no mom or dad, they thought, oh, and they took him away.

[Robert Krulwich]

The tribal council was extremely upset by this. They wanted to fight a battle about this.

[Tim Howard]

Burt took the case, fought it in court.

[Robert Krulwich]

We won that case, by the way. Mrs. Alex Fournier, she got Ivan back after a somewhat protracted battle.

[Tim Howard]

But he began to wonder, how widespread is this?

[Robert Krulwich]

So from 67 to the end of 68, into 69.

[Tim Howard]

He visited tribe after tribe after tribe doing interviews. And he says that everywhere he went, he would hear these stories.

[Various Interviewees/Contributors]

I remember it vividly.

[Tim Howard]

This is Deb Wells. She's a member of the Rosebud Sioux tribe. And when she was 10 years old, a car pulled into her driveway.

[Various Interviewees/Contributors]

Somebody come driving in, social workers. And they got out of the car, and I told my brothers and sisters, I said, go hide. And they had to drag us out from underneath the bed because we got around and got in the house. Well, then they took us to Scott's Bluff and put us in a foster home. It was horrible.

[Marcia Zug]

This was just part of every Native family's history.

[Tim Howard]

This is Marla Jean, Big boy. She grew up on the Pine Ridge Reservation in South Dakota. I remember when I was young, we'd.

[Marcia Zug]

Go to one of the border towns and my grandma would say, stay in the car.

[Tim Howard]

Lock yourself in.

[Marcia Zug]

Don't get out of the car. I'm going into the trading post because they're going to steal you.

[Tim Howard]

Really? Yeah.

[Robert Krulwich]

What we found is that on every reservation.

[Various Interviewees/Contributors]

My name is Michael Evan Nohart. I'm a full blood Umpa Lakota from Standing Rock Reservation.

[Robert Krulwich]

You couldn't not find a family that didn't know of a child in placement.

[Various Interviewees/Contributors]

The social services came and the took.

[Tim Howard]

Me and my sister and told my.

[Various Interviewees/Contributors]

Mother and dad that they were taking us into Bowbridge for a physical checkup and they never brought us back.

[Tim Howard]

Wow. Michael says that his dad spent the next 30 years looking for him. In any case, Burt would ask these people that he was interviewing, what reason did the social workers give you for taking the child? And the answers that he got ran the gamut.

[Robert Krulwich]

Conditions of poverty, alcoholism, overcrowding. Maybe they don't have adequate ventilation in.

[Tim Howard]

The house, no indoor plumbing. But in most cases, he says, the reasons wouldn't have stood up in court.

[Robert Krulwich]

They would put papers in front of them and they would sign. They didn't know what they were signing.

[Tim Howard]

Some families, if they could, they tried to fight it, but they usually couldn't afford to.

[Robert Krulwich]

Look, the tribal people are poor. So we began to do a statistical collection of data state by state, asking.

[Tim Howard]

How many Indian kids are in foster.

[Robert Krulwich]

Care, foster care and adoptive placement and institutional placement, juvenile facilities.

[Tim Howard]

And what he arrived at at the end of that analysis is a pretty shocking number.

[Robert Krulwich]

About one third of Indian children were in out of home placements in non Indian settings. 1/3, 25 to 35% of Indian children nationwide were in out of home placement.

[Jad Abumrad]

That's a real number.

[Tim Howard]

That is A real number. That's the number you see cited again and again.

[Robert Krulwich]

Nobody connected the dots. Everybody thought that it was their own personal tragedy. Nobody realized that this was a pattern and a practice that was decimating these tribes.

[Jad Abumrad]

Wait a second, wait a second. How would this happen on this scale? I mean, like, is this just a bunch of social workers making the same decision independently, or is it like a policy?

[Tim Howard]

Well, this is basically social workers very much acting in the spirit of the day, because you have to keep in mind that in the 50s and 60s, you have all these government policies that are put in place whose entire purpose is basically to try to once and for all solve this Indian problem that's gone on and on. You've got this guy in 1953 who's a senator from Utah who starts basically trying to terminate the tribes.

[Jad Abumrad]

You mean, like, take away their sovereignty?

[Tim Howard]

Yeah. He goes tribe to tribe, trying to convince them or force them, tell them they have no. There's no way out of it. He argues that this will be best for all of them. I remember this.

[Robert Krulwich]

This was like out of E Pluribus Unum, like, to integrate them into the whole.

[Tim Howard]

They will melt into the wider culture. That's what will save them. Part of this was part of the social workers that were working in this period. They were working under the auspices of this thing called the Indian Adoption Project, which was very much about that idea of, like, you take these kids from their poor conditions and you connect them directly to white families that are looking to adopt.

[Jad Abumrad]

So part of this was definitely top down, very much.

[Tim Howard]

In any case, the end result of this is that a third of these kids are being taken away. There were literally communities where there were no children. That's Terry Cross. He's the executive director of the National Indian Child Welfare Association. In Minnesota, there were communities where there were no children. In Alaska, there were communities where there were no children.

[Marcia Zug]

I mean, what is a culture except, you know, the ideas and traditions that you pass on to your kids?

[Tim Howard]

That's Marcia Zug again.

[Marcia Zug]

If you are hemorrhaging your children, then you're going to disappear.

[Tim Howard]

So what do you do?

[Robert Krulwich]

Well, it's too massive a problem. If you're trying to fight all these removals of kids on a case by case basis, forget about it. A national law is needed.

[Tim Howard]

So Burt spent years walking the halls of Congress, literally endless lobbying, congressional hearings, until finally the Indian Child Welfare act.

[Marcia Zug]

Is passed by Congress in 1978.

[Tim Howard]

So it does a lot. But basically, when it comes to adoptions.

[Marcia Zug]

The ICWA has placement preferences so the first preference would be with the immediate family, so you're removed from mom, you're placed with dad or maybe with grandmother.

[Tim Howard]

If they say no.

[Marcia Zug]

Second preference would be someone else in the tribe. And the third is any other American Indian.

[Tim Howard]

Wow.

[Jad Abumrad]

Any other.

[Tim Howard]

Yeah.

[Marcia Zug]

And then after that, then the child could be placed with, you know, another family.

[Jad Abumrad]

Well, so if you're white and you're trying to adopt an Indian kid, you have a lot of roadblocks.

[Tim Howard]

Yes.

[Marcia Zug]

But by and large, most of us think that ICWA was probably the best federal Indian law ever passed. It did the most to help Indian tribes respect tribal sovereignty and really fulfill the United States trust relationship with American Indian people.

[Tim Howard]

But now, because of this case, that law may be in jeopardy.

[Jad Abumrad]

We'll continue in a moment.

[Radiolab Announcer]

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[Tim Howard]

This is Ira Glass, the host of this American Life. So much is changing so rapidly right now with President Trump in office. It feels good to pause for a moment sometimes and look around at what's what to try and do that. We've been finding these incredible stories about.

[Robert Krulwich]

Right now that are funny and have.

[Jad Abumrad]

Feeling and you get to see people.

[Tim Howard]

Everywhere adapting and making sense of this new America that we find ourselves in. If you haven't listened in a while, I honestly think these are some of the best stories we've ever done. This is American Life every week, wherever.

[Jad Abumrad]

You get your podcasts. I'm Jad Abumrad.

[Robert Krulwich]

I'm Robert Quillowich.

[Jad Abumrad]

This is Radiolab. Today, a look at a Supreme Court case that may determine the future of a law called the Indian Child Welfare act, or icwa. The story comes from producer Tim Howard back to him.

[Tim Howard]

So in April, I went to this conference in Tulsa. The Board of Directors, Council of Elders, Big room. There were about 700 people there. Most of them work in child welfare organizations in Indian communities around the country. There was some traditional Cherokee drumming. There were films, workshops, and all anybody could talk about was this case. But there is no issue bigger now and how the Baby Veronica case may affect the Indian Child Welfare Act. So please, please do keep Baby Veronica and her family in your prayers. Everybody was on edge. Well, I'm really worried in this situation. This is Terry Cross again. He's one of the organizers, and he told me that, look, the Capo Biancos, I feel for them, but in what world is it okay for one family to who feels they were damaged by.

[Robert Krulwich]

A law to put thousands of other children at jeopardy for their own hurt? I can't imagine a world where that's okay.

[Marcia Zug]

Well, I mean, it's hard for us to say that because, you know, that's not what motivated us.

[Tim Howard]

Our daughter is what's motivating us, how we feel.

[Marcia Zug]

We just feel that in this case, it was a beautiful law that was put into place to prevent the breakup of families, Indian families. And I just think it wasn't really supposed to be applied to a situation.

[Tim Howard]

Like ours, they say. But we get that there's a huge historical wrong here. But what does that have to do with us?

[Jad Abumrad]

It reminds me of arguments that happen over affirmative action, weirdly, definitely.

[Tim Howard]

But here the details are so different. You know, they say this is a law that was created to protect Indian families. Right. But here you've got a Hispanic birth mom, you got a white couple, and then you got a dad who's out of the picture. So you're not actually protecting an Indian family. You're forcibly creating a new one. Absolutely. I mean, and in the process, you're breaking up a loving home.

[Marcia Zug]

I don't think that was the intent.

[Tim Howard]

Of the law ever. My personal opinion is that ICWA has outlived its usefulness and causes more problems than it solves. This is Mark Fidler. I'm one of the attorneys for Matt and Melanie Capo Bianco. He also happens to be Native American himself. I'm an enrolled member of the Turtle Mountain Band of Chippewa Indians. That's a reservation up in North Dakota, right on the border with Canada, you know, so I kind of had a foot in two cultures, so to speak. I'd go back to the res in the summer, and Mark actually used to argue the other side, that the most important thing was to keep Indian families together and that Indian kids who were placed in non Indian homes would experience emotional psychological harm by being raised outside of the culture. But then I had a case in, I think it was 94, which gave him pause. Ah, boy, that's a good word. It was a case in which this young American Indian girl, Sierra, wanted to be adopted by this white couple, and Mark opposed it, even though in my heart of hearts, I knew it was probably not the right thing for the child. He won the case. She was removed from the couple's home. And as Sierra would tell you herself, she had a really rough life. She bounced in and out of more than 20 foster homes, ran away many, many times, and got into serious trouble with the law. And it always nagged me. Mark says even though the tribes have suffered, that doesn't change the fact that if you take a kid out of a loving home, you're going to cause her real harm. And he says that's why he took this case, because the Capo Biancos, you know, they are among the most loving people I know. He says they did everything you could ask. They're just amazing people. They met the birth mother, Christy Maldonado, when she was pregnant. They got to know her.

[Marcia Zug]

She felt a connection to them.

[Tim Howard]

That's Lori McGill. She's represented Christy since last year.

[Marcia Zug]

And they were also willing to have an open adoption.

[Tim Howard]

Yeah, we still have a relationship with Christy. We love her to death. And Christy gave birth to Veronica.

[Marcia Zug]

They were there with her in the delivery room.

[Tim Howard]

Yeah. I mean, the day she was born, I cut the cord.

[Marcia Zug]

Matt Capo Bianco cut the umbilical cord.

[Tim Howard]

So that's such a degree of intimacy that I know.

[Marcia Zug]

I mean, having given birth twice myself, the idea that anyone other than my husband would be in the room is kind of scary. But it gives you some idea of how she felt about the Capabiancos.

[Tim Howard]

Now, as for Dustin Brown, Veronica's biological dad, a couple months before she was born, Christy, the birth mom, sent him a text message asking him if he.

[Marcia Zug]

Wants to pay child support or he wants to waive his rights.

[Tim Howard]

And he replied, I'll waive my rights.

[Marcia Zug]

Rather than pay a dime in child support.

[Jad Abumrad]

Well, there's the contrast. So in the beginning, it sounds like he did not want to be a dad.

[Tim Howard]

Yeah. And then actually, a few months later, he seems to make it even more official by signing a form agreeing to.

[Jad Abumrad]

The adoption and then he changes his mind.

[Tim Howard]

Yeah. You know, and obviously I was wondering what was he thinking? Because you can't avoid the fact that how you feel about this guy is gonna influence how you feel about this law. Yeah. And so I was trying to get in touch with him. I was pestering his lawyers, you know, will he do an interview? This went on for weeks and they were basically like, he doesn't want to do interviews. He doesn't want to talk. Yeah, yeah.

[Jad Abumrad]

So you didn't get him?

[Tim Howard]

Yeah, I got him. Good. So shortly before we were gonna wrap this story, I get an email saying come to Oklahoma. So I went. He lives in this one story house on this tree lined block. He in a small town north of Tulsa. Hey, how's it going?

[Dustin Brown]

How are we doing? Doing good.

[Tim Howard]

Okay.

[Jad Abumrad]

What does it look like?

[Tim Howard]

He's just a very normal looking guy, a little bit of an army haircut. He had a stash that night when he got Veronica, but he's clean shaven now, big smile. So anyway, we go inside and the first thing he tells me is that Veronica is not there. Excited to meet her. She was out with his wife, Robin.

[Dustin Brown]

She goes out with my wife.

[Tim Howard]

Turns out he's remarried. In any case, test, test, test. All right. We sat down at the kitchen table and started talking. Do you mind just, do you mind introducing yourself and telling me like where we are?

[Dustin Brown]

I'm Dustin Brown. We're in Noah, Oklahoma. This is my house. I'm part of the Wolf clan.

[Tim Howard]

Wolf clan is one of the seven Cherokee clans.

[Dustin Brown]

And my name, Dustin Mead's brave warrior in Cherokee and actually, you know, join the army up and go over to Iraq. I'm like, wow, I'm here for the Cherokees. I'm the brave warrior out in, you know, desert.

[Tim Howard]

He's been a registered member since he was a little kid. His parents were members and their parents and he said he's proud to be Cherokee basically because it means that he's from where he lives.

[Dustin Brown]

It's a big deal to me.

[Tim Howard]

So anyway, we started talking about the case and you know, it gets complicated. There's a lot of detail. I'm not going to go into all of it. But basically he and Christy Maldonado, the.

[Dustin Brown]

Birth mom, we've known each other since we were 16.

[Tim Howard]

We've dated off and on throughout 2008, he joins the army basic training. He lives on a base, it's four hours away and Christmas time that year he basically says, let's get serious.

[Dustin Brown]

Got down on one knee and Proposed to her, said, hey, I want to bring you into my life. She said, okay, that's just great. And almost a month later, she sent me a message saying that she was pregnant. And I was excited. I mean, to have children with her was one of the things I wanted at that time. Told her, I can move you and your kids up to the base. Housing was going to be free on base. There was schools for her kids. She could get a job right there on base. You know, everything was taken care of. I mean, everything was going great, you.

[Tim Howard]

Know, and then pretty quickly the whole thing just soured. It's impossible to know exactly what happened, but Chrissy says that Dustin just simply didn't offer any support. He says that he did. He tried to at least. But shortly after she got pregnant, she basically just shut him out, stopped taking his calls.

[Dustin Brown]

I didn't get no phone calls, no text messages, nothing from her out of the blue. And I'm just like, well, what's going on?

[Tim Howard]

He says that he tried to get.

[Dustin Brown]

In touch with her, texting her up, trying to call her. Still no answer. There's a couple times that I've went back to Barsville, went to her house.

[Tim Howard]

Drove those four hours from the base.

[Dustin Brown]

Knocked on her door. I could hear, you know, voices in the house. It sounded like her and the kids, they wouldn't answer the door for me.

[Tim Howard]

And then one day, he says, she.

[Dustin Brown]

Sent me a message saying, I don't want to be with you no more.

[Tim Howard]

And three weeks after that, she's like.

[Dustin Brown]

Well, I want you to sign your rights over.

[Tim Howard]

His parental rights.

[Dustin Brown]

Would you sign your rights over.

[Tim Howard]

You guys are texting this or are.

[Dustin Brown]

You talking the whole time we're text messaging this because she wouldn't talk to me.

[Tim Howard]

What did you think it meant to me?

[Dustin Brown]

I just thought she wanted me to sign my rights over to her. And I'm like, this is something I really don't want to do.

[Tim Howard]

He says she kept texting him that question. And looming in his mind was the fact that he just learned that we.

[Dustin Brown]

Were going to be going to Iraq to do a radar mission. So.

[Tim Howard]

And he starts to wonder, what's the right thing to do here?

[Dustin Brown]

You know, if there was one of them chances, I wasn't going to come back. I wanted to make the right choice and let the mother be that sole parent.

[Tim Howard]

He says that he's holding out hope that if he does make it back.

[Dustin Brown]

We'Ll get back together and she'll just change her mind. Finally I just told her. I was like, all right, I'll sign my rights.

[Tim Howard]

Ever months go by, Christy has the baby. He says he doesn't know exactly when because they weren't speaking.

[Dustin Brown]

But then six days before I had to go deploy to Iraq, I get a phone call from some guy in Washington County. A process server said, hey, we need you to sign some papers so you can sign your custody rights over.

[Tim Howard]

The guy directed him to an office.

[Dustin Brown]

Right near the base, went there and signed the paper. And what did you think it meant the whole time? I thought it was just, you know, the paperwork for me, signing custody rights to her. But when I got done signing, the guy said, you just signed your rights away. And so did the biological mother. The baby's been up for adoption. She's been living in South Carolina for four months.

[Tim Howard]

Dustin says this is the first moment that he realized what was actually happening, that the baby was up for adoption. And he says that he had no idea he had just legally consented to it.

[Dustin Brown]

I should have had a lawyer there with me at that point in time. I grabbed the paper, and the guy looked at me and said, if you go and rip that up, he said, it's a. It's not good to do that, that.

[Tim Howard]

He could be arrested.

[Dustin Brown]

And I said, what do I gotta do? He said, you need to get a lawyer.

[Tim Howard]

Which he immediately did. And that's why the courts have ruled in his favor, because they say that from that moment, he's clearly demonstrated that he wants to be her dad.

[Dustin Brown]

I mean, I never. Never once did I want to give up on my daughter. Never once did I want to give her up. I mean, everybody says that I gave her up, never wanted to.

[Tim Howard]

Now, Mark and Laurie say that if this were any other guy, any other.

[Marcia Zug]

Man of any other race, the story.

[Tim Howard]

Would be over right about here.

[Marcia Zug]

It's too late.

[Tim Howard]

He wouldn't have any rights at all.

[Marcia Zug]

Under every state's laws. Too late. Under the federal constitution. Too late. He rejected that opportunity to become a father.

[Tim Howard]

But he has one thing in his favor, says Laurie. He happens to be Cherokee. And because of that fact, not only.

[Marcia Zug]

Can this sort of man object, but he gets an automatic transfer of custody to him.

[Tim Howard]

And Mark and Laurie see that as basically the worst kind of preferential treatment. And that is unbelievable. This is John. John Nichols. This is Shannon.

[Jad Abumrad]

Shannon Jones.

[Tim Howard]

They're two of Dustin's lawyers. And John says, okay, there's preferential treatment, fine. But. But think about why all the protections of ICWA are there.

[Robert Krulwich]

These roadblocks are there for a reason.

[Tim Howard]

We went over this earlier, but you Know, basically people are being manipulated out of their kids. And while you might like to think that that's ancient history now, Fast forward to 2010. He says the same thing is happening in this case.

[Robert Krulwich]

And we have a registered member of the Cherokee Nation. We have his child being given up for adoption without his knowledge and without his consent.

[Tim Howard]

And they kept this adoption from him for months and then spring it on him six days before he leaves the country.

[Robert Krulwich]

It looks to us like it was engineered to make sure he got served, but not in enough time to where he could put up a fight.

[Marcia Zug]

I believe it was absolutely intentional.

[Tim Howard]

And Shannon suggests that they knew about icwa, they knew it would apply, and they were trying to sidestep it.

[Marcia Zug]

There were so many errors.

[Tim Howard]

You just did a little air quotes on errors, didn't you? Yeah, I did. Because, I mean, like, for example, there's this one important forum where Shannon says that they went out of their way to make it look like Veronica is not Native American because it would be detrimental to the adoption. That's just. It's a preposterous argument. You know the form Mark and Laurie say the reason that nobody put Cherokee in big bright flaming letters is simple.

[Marcia Zug]

Christy herself is predominantly Hispanic. Dustin is predominantly Caucasian and is approximately 2% Cherokee.

[Jad Abumrad]

What did she say 2%?

[Tim Howard]

Yeah. Veronica herself would be a little bit over 1%.

[Jad Abumrad]

Wait, this whole thing is happening because he's only 2%? Well, I feel like that changes things somehow.

[Tim Howard]

Well, yeah, but you have to keep in mind that Cherokee Nation doesn't care about the percentage of Cherokee in your blood. That's not how they determine their members.

[Robert Krulwich]

Being a member of the Cherokee Nation is like being a member of the United States. You are a citizen of the nation.

[Marcia Zug]

You know, if, if your parents a US Citizen, you're automatically a citizen.

[Tim Howard]

That's Kirsty Nemo, Assistant Attorney General for Cherokee Nation.

[Marcia Zug]

If your parents a Cherokee citizen, you're.

[Tim Howard]

Not automatically a citizen, but you can automatically apply. So. So it's based on direct lineage. But still, you're right, because this is the argument that is most troubling to the tribes. Both Chrissy Nemo and Marcia Zug told me that if the Supreme Court ends.

[Marcia Zug]

Up deciding that ICWA is unconstitutional because it really is race based unconstitutional because it's a race based preference, it calls into question every single federal Indian law. Ow. There goes Indian law. This is a case that they could use to do that.

[Tim Howard]

If ICWA falls because it's unconstitutional, it could have a crazy domino effect.

[Marcia Zug]

Every single federal Indian law is Premised on giving some sort of special treatment to Indians.

[Jad Abumrad]

What would that mean concretely, if Indian law were to go away?

[Tim Howard]

It means that their policing, their court system, their education, anything they do as a sovereign nation, all of that just evaporates. A tribe would just become another group of people on some land. That said, this is not the likely outcome. Now the Supreme Court will probably rule as narrowly as they possibly can. And as far as the tribes are concerned, they can do a lot of damage to the law without calling it unconstitutional. You know, they could allow for this certain kind of exception to icwa, which would make it a lot easier for people like the Capo Biancos to adopt.

[Jad Abumrad]

So they could rule any number of ways.

[Tim Howard]

Yeah. And the thing is that it's all strangely connected to this. I figured maybe three year old girl.

[Dustin Brown]

The whole time through this, I'm thinking I'm just gonna signed custody rights over.

[Tim Howard]

So when, when she finally showed up, halfway through my interview with Dustin. Hello. Hi. It was kind of surreal.

[Dustin Brown]

This is my daughter Veronica, though.

[Tim Howard]

Daddy. Hey, Veronica. I'm Tim. She's got dark curly hair, she's this ball of energy.

[Dustin Brown]

She's definitely bull headed.

[Tim Howard]

And within a minute, she's giving me a tour of every single object in her room. And this, I mean, everything. Who's that? Army bear. Army bear.

[Dustin Brown]

You got one of daddy's dog tags on it.

[Tim Howard]

Yeah. She was a very, very proud host. A few minutes later, she wanted to show me her geese. I don't think I've seen geese in a long time. I'm about to. I'm about to. Are these your ducks?

[Jad Abumrad]

Those are, those are real geese.

[Tim Howard]

Yeah. Hi, babies. She feeds them out of her hands.

[Dustin Brown]

No, no, no. Don't mess with that water.

[Tim Howard]

Come here, babies. Come here, babies. Thomas. Thomas. Train.

[Dustin Brown]

Thomas the train.

[Robert Krulwich]

Yes.

[Dustin Brown]

Yeah.

[Jad Abumrad]

So what, what could happen to her?

[Tim Howard]

Are they eating? Well? If the Supreme Court said Dustin Brown shouldn't have qualified as father under icwa, what they do is they would send it back down to a South Carolina court and then they would have this new best interest evaluation. Basically like what's the best thing for her at this point? She's been with him now for about a year and a half and so that actually might really change the calculation, you know, and honestly, hanging out with her and Dustin in the backyard is really easy to forget. All these people whose lives are just completely tangled up in this scene, but who aren't there. Christy Maldonado, the birth mom.

[Marcia Zug]

She did not intend to give Veronica up. She intended to give Veronica A life.

[Tim Howard]

Matt and Melanie Capo Bianco.

[Marcia Zug]

I mean, this has been going on for so long. We've kind of been in a holding pattern for like, well, forever.

[Tim Howard]

We're just waiting and waiting and waiting. And of course, the hundreds of tribes who are just worried about their own kids. Pretty cool. Are you a good swimmer? Yes, I'm a good swimmer. I'm a bad swimmer. You're not. You dead swimmer. No, I'm a pretty bad swimmer. No, you not. You dud swimmer. How do you know I'm a good swimmer? I know. You dud swimmer. You dud swimmer. Well, I appreciate that. Yeah.

[Jad Abumrad]

So the Supreme Court came to a decision on this ruling about a month after we first aired this podcast. And here's what they said.

[Tim Howard]

Okay. So The Supreme Court ruled 5, 4 in favor of the adoptive couple, which is to say against the birth father to Dustin Brown.

[Jad Abumrad]

The dad lost.

[Tim Howard]

Right. It was like a 60 page ruling. And not being totally confident what all the ramifications were, I just made some calls.

[Marcia Zug]

Hi, how are you?

[Tim Howard]

I'm doing great. How are you? For example, I Skyped with Marcia Zug, who you remember from the piece. She's a law professor at the University of South Carolina. Can you walk me through what this opinion means?

[Marcia Zug]

Well, in terms of Veronica's placement, had it come out the other way, then it would be over. She would stay with Dustin Brown, her biological father. End of story. What we have now is the court upholding the termination of his parental rights.

[Tim Howard]

So basically, the Supreme Court ruled that Dustin Brown shouldn't have been allowed to invoke the Indian Child Welfare act because he didn't have what's called continuing custody of Veronica. Continuing custody, right. They argue that this law is about preventing the breakup of Indian families. And there was no Indian family here because they didn't live together. The dad and the daughter didn't live together. Right. So they don't scrap the Indian Child Welfare Act. They just say that it shouldn't apply in a case like this. So that's as narrow as you can get.

[Robert Krulwich]

Probably.

[Tim Howard]

Yeah.

[Robert Krulwich]

But I mean, I'm curious, what happens now when the case. Where does the case go from here?

[Tim Howard]

Well, the Supreme Court kicked it back down to a lower court where you'd expect that they'd just award the couple Bianco's custody. And that's what this guy said.

[Various Interviewees/Contributors]

So this is going back to South Carolina and to the state Supreme Court.

[Tim Howard]

This is Tajinder Singh. He's a contributor at SCOTUS Blog and.

[Various Interviewees/Contributors]

A counsel at the Law firm Goldstein and Russell, which practice before the Supreme Court.

[Tim Howard]

So the case goes to the South Carolina Supreme Court, and then they'll probably.

[Various Interviewees/Contributors]

Push the case down to their lower courts to make further decisions about whether the father has standing to object adoption. And assuming he doesn't, after this decision, you know whether the adoption can just become finalized.

[Jad Abumrad]

So it sounds like the Capo Biancos will ultimately get Veronica back.

[Tim Howard]

Possibly, yeah. But Marcia says that there's a chance that it might not go that way.

[Marcia Zug]

So now she's up for adoption.

[Tim Howard]

Right. This is where it gets complicated. So because the Supreme Court said that ICWA still stands, it's still law.

[Jad Abumrad]

Okay.

[Tim Howard]

And they said that Veronica is an Indian child, she's Cherokee. That means that the South Carolina Supreme Court could decide that she is still covered by the Indian Child Welfare Act.

[Marcia Zug]

My understanding of the case, they're not saying that ICWA doesn't apply with the placement preferences.

[Tim Howard]

You remember the placement preferences. If the court decides that this is still an ICWA case, then those preferences would kick in. So if you recall, according to icwa.

[Various Interviewees/Contributors]

When an Indian child is placed for adoption, her extended family members would be given first preference. Right.

[Tim Howard]

This is Solangel Delangel Maldonado.

[Various Interviewees/Contributors]

Joseph M. Lynch professor of Law, Seton Hall University School of Law.

[Tim Howard]

So in an ICWA case, the first preference is extended family.

[Various Interviewees/Contributors]

Second preference, other members of the Cherokee tribe would be next in line. Third preference, other Indian families. This means an Indian family from any of the 562 federally recognized tribes, and then finally any other family, such as the Capo Biancos.

[Tim Howard]

So if the South Carolina Supreme Court decides that this is still an Equa.

[Various Interviewees/Contributors]

Case, and if the paternal grandparents file a petition to adopt, they are at the very top of the mandatory placement preferences, and the Capo Biancos are at the very bottom.

[Jad Abumrad]

So it's possible that Capo Biancos might not get custody.

[Tim Howard]

Yeah. And Marcia even says that there's a chance that Dustin Brown himself.

[Marcia Zug]

My guess is that Dustin Brown will.

[Tim Howard]

Come forward to adopt Veronica.

[Marcia Zug]

His rights were terminated because he failed to support. But now we've got basically two years worth of evidence of him loving and supporting and taking care of her. And the court's not going to ignore that.

[Tim Howard]

It's just so crazy to think, though, that this guy who's the biological father may ultimately become the adoptive father.

[Marcia Zug]

That's insane. Yes.

[Jad Abumrad]

Damn, this is complicated. I thought that they were supposed to get less complicated.

[Tim Howard]

You know, John Nichols, Dustin Brown's lawyer, he said to me that this is Totally uncharted waters that he's never seen a case of this magnitude get decided by the Supreme Court and still be so open ended.

[Robert Krulwich]

What's the timetable on this?

[Tim Howard]

John said that they expect to hear something from the South Carolina supreme court on Monday, July 8th. Just laying out what the next steps are.

[Jad Abumrad]

So, Tim, let me ask you. We spent a fair amount of time in the story examining the worst case scenario from the tribe's perspective that this case could be used as a kind of Trojan horse to say that all of Indian law is an unfair race based preference and therefore should be negated.

[Tim Howard]

Right.

[Jad Abumrad]

I'm gathering from what you just said that that did not come to pass.

[Tim Howard]

No, that didn't happen. But there is this sense that they, they kind of planted a seed. For example, Justice Alito, who wrote the ruling, he starts it off with mention of Veronica being, you know, 1.2% Cherokee, which is interesting because it sounds like he's about to make an argument for why this is a race based preference and why it's a violation of equal protection.

[Jad Abumrad]

Like he's about to go nuclear if that's how he starts.

[Tim Howard]

Exactly. Which to me was kind of baffling, because why would you start off with this massive footprint and then leave a very small one? Is it to send a message? So anyway, I asked Marcia what she thought about it. Why do you think they started it off that way?

[Marcia Zug]

I've been thinking about that. It clearly sat wrong with at least some members of the court. I mean, when listening to the oral arguments, you could tell that, you know, Roberts harped on it as well. It might have been that that was too big an issue to address in this case that they weren't ready to. But I think it's an indication that at least some members of the court have serious reservations about Indian law because they just don't see Veronica as an Indian child. To them, Indian is a race and she doesn't have enough blood to be of that race. It's a possible indication of where future Indian law cases are going to go.

[Jad Abumrad]

Producer Tim Howard. Thanks, Tim.

[Radiolab Announcer]

Okay, it's Lulu again, back in 2025. And as you just heard, there were sort of two categories of lingering questions. One about what would happen to Veronica and the other about the Indian Child Welfare Act. So ultimately, Veronica's case wound up in Family Court, which found that without the application of icwa, Dustin could not intervene. One week after her fourth birthday, Veronica was returned to the Capo Biancos in South Carolina. And a few months after that, Dustin and the Cherokee Nation announced that they would not continue pursuing the case, and Veronica's life became much more private after that, away from all the attention of the courts. She's now 16 years old. As for the Indian Child Welfare Act, ICWA, it's faced repeated challenges in the past 12 years. The biggest one was in 2012, but at that time the Supreme Court upheld ICWA 7 to 2. So for now it is alive and affirmed at the national level, but not without continued challenges, including a case brought before the Minnesota Supreme Court just this year challenging icwa. Again, that case has not been decided. Thanks so much for listening. We'll be back next week.

[Various Interviewees/Contributors]

Hi Hi, I'm Sarah Michael calling from Madison, New Jersey, and here are the staff credits. Radiolab was created by Jad Abumrad and is edited by Soren Wheeler. Lulu Miller and Latif Nasser are our co hosts. Dylan Keefe is our Director of Sound design. Our staff includes Simon Adler, Jeremy Bloom, W. Harry Fortuna, David Gable, Maria Paz Gutierrez, Sindhu Nyana Sambandam, Matt Kielty, Annie McKeown, Alex Neeson, Sarah Kari, Sarah Sandbach, Anissa Vipsa, Arianne Wack, Pat Walters, Molly Webster, and Jessica Young, with help from Rebecca Rand. Our fact checkers are Diane Kelly, Emily Krieger, Ana Pujol Manzini, and Natalie Middleton. Hi, I'm Maddie and I'm from Frederick, Maryland. Leadership support for Radiolab Science programming is provided by the Simmons foundation and the John Templeton Foundation Foundation. Foundational support for Radiolab was provided by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation.

[Robert Krulwich]

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[Marcia Zug]

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[Radiolab Announcer]

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[Marcia Zug]

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[Radiolab Announcer]

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