Kimberly Cluff, as the legal director of the California Tribal Families Coalition, sat in as the U.S. Supreme Court heard arguments in the Brackeen v. Haaland case last November. The case is about an adoption and directly threatens the Indian Child Welfare Act of 1978, which sought to put an end to centuries of Native American children being taken from their families and put up for adoption by white families.

More than that, Brackeen proponents are trying to undermine hard-earned sovereignty by tribes, arguing that their status is unconstitutional under the 10th Amendment: "The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people." If successful, the dismantling of ICWA would also threaten the tribes' ability to protect their land and resources from outside forces. The case is expected to be decided any day now.

Before ICWA it was common practice to remove native children from their parents, in fact, as many as 25-30 percent were put up for adoption. As Cluff discusses, it was merely one part of centuries-long abuses against America's first residents. In California, some of the needs are even more grave, with poverty and health issues outpacing any other group.

Cluff is the daughter of Ojai icons Don and Sheila Cluff, attended Cal Berkeley and Hastings Law before becoming involved with native American issues. We also talked about the Vatican on March 30th renouncing its "Doctrine of Discovery" by which it sought to "Christianize the world," which has been in effect since 1455 and was used in legal arguments in the U.S. as recently as 2005. We also talked about growing up in Ojai and being eager to escape, then having your own children and being just as eager to return. We did not talk about ChatGPT4, Louis C.K. standup routines or the Romans' Lost Legion.