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In issuing an opinion on parental rights last week, the South Dakota Supreme Court upheld the constitutionality of the Indian Child Welfare Act, a month after a federal judge in Texas ruled the adoption law unconstitutional.

"We are aware of the recent decision of the United States District Court for the Northern District of Texas holding parts of ICWA, including its placement preferences, unconstitutional," wrote South Dakota Supreme Court Chief Justice David Gilbertson in the Nov. 20 opinion, an unanimous decision from the five-justice court in terminating parental rights of a Native American woman and a man who is affiliated but not enrolled with the Cheyenne River Sioux Tribe.

"[W]e are not bound by the decision of the District Court in Texas and must presume that ICWA is constitutional," Gilbertson wrote, noting the Texas judge's decision to toss out ICWA, the 1978 law. The judge called ICWA a "race-based statute."

Gilbertson said the Texas's judge's decision may be appealed to a federal appeals court.