Instead of engaging in meaningful consultation with Tribes to obtain consent to the revisions or adopting the Tribes’ recommendations, the perspective of Tribal governments is glaringly absent.

The United Nations Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination urged the United States government to implement broader policies to address systemic racism and structural racial discrimination at the federal, state, local, and tribal level..

If the Indian Child Welfare Act is overturned, tribes will again be stripped of their right to keep their families together. This is a tragedy as we know that having connection to our cultures, languages and identities is in the best interest of Native children.

The ACLU is asking the UN Committee to recommend that United States require states take decisive enforcement action against discriminatory state laws, policies or agency actions that defeat and undermine Indigenous education equity.

The First Amendment protects academic freedom and the right to share ideas, including the right of individuals to receive information and knowledge. Instead of encouraging learning, Noem’s executive order will have a chilling effect on academic freedom.

To begin to heal and move toward real racial equality, we must address the unlawful discrimination in our community today. We unequivocally condemn the recent blatant, racist denial of services to Native Americans at a hotel and bar in Rapid City.

The ACLU of South Dakota will be monitoring a wide variety of bills and will focus on three main issue areas: abortion access and reproductive freedom, defending free speech and opposing classroom censorship, and LGBTQ+ and Two Spirit equality.

The removal of recommended OSEU and Native American topics from the content standards deprives students of their right to receive information and ideas and racially discriminates or has the effect of racially discriminating against Native Americans in South Dakota.

The Advocacy Academy is a series of comprehensive virtual trainings and community hours designed to teach people how to make a difference in their community on a state and local level.