Policy Forum 

# The Indian Child Welfare Act at 40 

##### Watch the Event 

Download:

[ 

Video 

](https://fastly-unsigned-us-east-1-prod.brightcovecdn.com/media/v1/pmp4/static/clear/6039378657001/f90e3e9b-eaaf-4af3-b05e-bafcf08f99db/8e2dfc62-a86b-4f64-8725-892a916cd67d/main.mp4) 

[ 

Video 

](https://cdn.cato.org/archive-2018/cpf-09-20-18-02.mp4) 

[ 

Audio 

](https://cdn.cato.org/archive-2018/cpfa-09-20-18-02.mp3) 

Join the conversation on X using [\#CatoEvents](https://x.com/hashtag/CatoEvents). Follow [@CatoInstitute](https://x.com/catoinstitute) on X to get future event updates, live streams, and videos from the Cato Institute.

Date and Time 

September 20, 2018 12 - 1:30 PM EDT 

Location 

Richard and Sue Ann Masson Policy Center, Cato Institute 

Share This Event 

##### Featuring 

Featuring **Timothy Sandefur**, Vice President for Litigation at the Goldwater Institute, and author, *Escaping the ICWA Penalty Box*; **Matthew McGill**, Partner, Washington, D.C., office of Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher; **Charles Rothfeld**, Visiting Clinical Lecturer in Law, Yale Law School; counsel at the firm of Mayer Brown; moderated by **Walter Olson**, Senior Fellow, Cato Institute, Robert A. Levy Center for Constitutional Studies. 

Passed in 1978, the Indian Child Welfare Act (ICWA) was intended to stop abusive practices by state and federal officials, who often removed Native American children from their families without sufficient justification. But today, ICWA is the subject of litigation in federal and state courts by challengers who argue that it imposes race-based restrictions on adoption and makes it harder for state officials to protect Native American children against abuse and neglect. Join us for a discussion of recent developments and upcoming challenges to ICWA, presented by Timothy Sandefur, Vice President for Litigation at the Goldwater Institute and author of *Escaping the ICWA Penalty Box*; Matthew McGill, attorney for plaintiffs in *Brackeen v. Zinke*, a major ICWA lawsuit under way in Texas; and Charles Rothfeld, who represented the birth father in the important ICWA case *Adoptive Couple v. Baby Girl*.

**Follow [@CatoEvents](https://twitter.com/catoevents) on Twitter and join the conversation using [\#ICWA40](https://twitter.com/hashtag/ICWA40).**

[![Creative Commons License](/build/cato_2020/images/creative-commons.svg)](http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/) 
This work is licensed under a [Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/).