Board-certified in business bankruptcy law by the Texas Board of Legal Specialization, Hugh M. Ray III serves as a partner at Pillsbury Winthrop Shaw Pittman (PWSP), LLP, in Houston. In addition to his work in corporate bankruptcy, Hugh Ray III also is a member of the member's consultative group of the American Law Institute drafting the "Restatement of the Law of American Indians".
Native American Indian law covers tribal law, federal law governing tribes and Indian land, compacts between the sates and a tribe, and even taxation and bankruptcy issues involving the limited sovereign immunity of tribes. Generally, tribal governments have autonomy over their internal affairs, but federal law intersects with and often regulates tribal members.
One such federal law is the Indian Child Welfare Act, in which Congress awarded Native children “equal rights and human rights.” with an adoption preference whereby Native American children were preferred to be adopted by other Native Americans. The legislation had broad support from 325 tribes, 57 organizations, and 31 child-welfare groups, an argument in favor of reinstating the full force of the law was released in January 2019.
With the additional support of seven members of Congress, a new legal brief requests that a federal appeals court review the Brackeen v. Zinke decision in the Northern District of Texas. In that case, federal Judge Reed O’Connor ruled that the Indian Child Welfare Act was a “race-based statute” in violation of the Equal Protection Clause. The ruling has been stayed pending the appeal.
Advocates for the law argue that the law protects against systemic bias, on the grounds that Native American children are separated from their biological families by state child welfare authorities at a much higher rate than white children, even though the reported rates of family abuse and neglect among the two groups were similar. The Fifth District U.S. Court of Appeals is expected to review Judge O’Connor’s ruling in summer 2019.
The American Law Institute does not take a position on the validity or invalidity of any law. It does not advocate for or against any legal proposition. However, as they stand as condensation of common law principles, the Restatements of Law are considered persuasive authority in nearly all courts.
