South Dakota needs specific child welfare laws for Native Americans, officials say. State lawmakers talked over the implications of the Supreme Court’s support of the Indian Child Welfare Act during a State-Tribal Relations Committee on Monday. Thirteen states have adopted their own versions of the federal Indian Child Welfare Act. If ever there was a time for a South Dakota ICWA, it’s now. That was the common sentiment at the South Dakota State-Tribal Relations Committee meeting at Agency Village near Sisseton. Committee members met to discuss the implications of the Supreme Court’s decision to uphold the federal Indian Child Welfare Act, and what that decision would mean for South Dakota Native children and tribes.
An Oklahoma law will soon confer on Native American students the right to wear traditional regalia during graduation ceremonies. The tribal regalia bill, SB 429, vests students enrolled in a public school district or in an institution within the Oklahoma State System of Higher Education with the right to “wear tribal regalia during the institution’s official graduation ceremonies, whether held at a public or private location.” Oklahoma is home to thirty-nine federally recognized Indian tribes, and over 156,000 Native American students.
Those are your headlines at this hour. I’m Colette Keith in the KIPI News center.
