Kathryn E. Fort

Director of Clinics and Director of the Indian Law Clinic Michigan State University

East Lansing MI

Prof. Fort has researched and written extensively on the Indian Child Welfare Act.

Contact

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Biography

Kathryn (Kate) E. Fort is the Director of Clinics at Michigan State University College of Law and runs the Indian Law Clinic, where she teaches the Clinic class and other classes in federal Indian law. In 2015, she started the Indian Child Welfare Act Appellate Project, which represents tribes in complex ICWA litigation across the country. She is the author of American Indian Children and the Law, published by Carolina Academic Press. Prof. Fort has researched and written extensively on the Indian Child Welfare Act. Her publications include articles in the Harvard Public Health Review, George Mason Law Review, Family Law Quarterly, Saint Louis University Law Journal, American Indian Law Review as well as chapters in Critical Race Judgements (Cambridge University Press, 2022) and Child Welfare Law and Practice (National Assoc. of Counsel for Children, 2023), both with Matthew L.M. Fletcher. She co-edited Facing the Future: The Indian Child Welfare Act at 30 (Michigan State University Press 2009) and she is a contributing editor to the Cohen’s Handbook of Federal Indian Law. She is an original contributor to the Indian law blog, Turtle Talk. Prof. Fort has provided direct representation to tribes in the Washington, Colorado, and Michigan Supreme Courts, the Ohio, Illinois, and Tennessee Court of Appeals, the Second, Fourth, Fifth, Eighth, and Ninth U.S. Circuit Courts of Appeals, as well as the United States Supreme Court. More recently she obtained significant funding to start the Tribal Appellate Clerk Project which, as part of the Indian Law Clinic, allows law students to assist tribal appellate courts by providing research and memos on appellate tribal cases.

Prof. Fort graduated magna cum laude in from Michigan State University College of Law with the Certificate in Indigenous Law and is licensed to practice law in Michigan. She received her B.A. in History with honors from Hollins University in Roanoke, Virginia.

Areas of Expertise

Federal Indian Law

Accomplishments

Practitioner Award, Litigation Section, American Association of Law Schools

2024

Indian Child Welfare Act Champion Award, Pascua Yaqui Tribe

2023

Outstanding Service Award, National American Indian Court Judges Association

2022-2023

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Education

Michigan State University College of Law

J.D.

2005

Hollins University

B.A.

History

1999

News

MSU’s Indian Law Clinic receives funding to continue its mission of supporting Native families, tribes

WKAR Public Media online

2024-09-05

Kathryn E. Fort is director of clinics at the college and directs the Indian Law Clinic. She talks about the clinic’s history and mission and talks about the types of cases with which the clinic assists.

Ask the Expert: Supreme Court decision on Indian Child Welfare Act

Michigan State University online

2023-06-15

Kathryn E. Fort, director of Michigan State University’s Indian Law Clinic, represents Native American tribes in Indian Child Welfare Act cases in state and federal court. The most recent case, Haaland v. Brackeen, was argued in front of the Supreme Court of the United States in November 2022. On Thursday, June 15, the Supreme Court of the United States issued a decision to uphold the Indian Child Welfare Act. Fort answers questions on the decision and Act.

Supreme Court Backs Indian Child Welfare Act, as a Justice Cites Boarding School Legacy

EducationWeek online

2023-06-15

Kathryn E. Fort, the director of the Indian Law Clinic at Michigan State University’s College of Law, said the decision is “a resounding victory for Indian child welfare, for native families, and for principle of federal Indian law.”

Event Appearances

Interrogating Haaland v. Brackeen

October 2023 | Connecticut Law Review Symposium

After Brackeen: Outcomes and Implications of the Supreme Court’s Decision Upholding the Indian Child Welfare Act

September 2023 | University of Nevada Los Angeles, CA

What Is the Indian Child Welfare Act and the Supreme Court Case?

February 2023 | Leading Equity, Diversity, and Justice Conference

Journal Articles

The Road to Brackeen: Defending ICWA 2013-2023

American University Law Review

2023

From 2013 to 2023, the Indian Child Welfare Act (ICWA) was challenged in the courts more than the Affordable Care Act. This Article lays out the history of the fight over ICWA from Baby Girl to Haaland, from my perspective as a clinical professor who has been involved with every major ICWA case since 2013, as well as my observations about why ICWA was so vulnerable to an organized litigation attack despite continued bipartisan and widespread support of the law.

The Indian Child Welfare Act during the Brackeen years

Juvenile and Family Court Journal

2023

From 2017 through 2022, while the Indian Child Welfare Act (“ICWA”) was under direct constitutional attack from Texas, state courts around the country continued hearing appeals on ICWA with virtually no regard for the decision-making happening in Haaland v. Brackeen in the federal courts. For practitioners following or working on both sets of cases, this duality felt surreal, as they practiced their daily work under an existential threat.

After Brackeen: Funding Tribal Systems

Family Law Quarterly

2023

While the Supreme Court upheld the constitutionality of the Indian Child Welfare Act in Haaland v. Brackeen, tribes are still searching for a way around the current complex and unnecessary federal requirements in order to access funding for their systems. The Brackeen litigation laid bare the importance of tribal governments administering their own child protection and justice systems separate and apart from the states. Tribal governments must have the ability to successfully secure significant sources of funding for tribal child welfare systems. Otherwise, tribes will continue to be at a massive disadvantage and will be unable to fully serve their children and families.