Bill to establish First Federal Truth & Healing Commission on Indian Boarding Schools re-introduced

WASHINGTON—On Monday, February 5, U.S. Representatives Sharice Davids (D-KS) and Tom Cole (R-OK) re-introduced a bill that would establish the first federal commission focused on federal Indian boarding schools. H.R.7227 was introduced as the Truth and Healing Commission on Indian Boarding School Policies Act of 2024 and is a companion bill to S.1723. It is the third attempt by Congressional leaders to pass legislation that would establish a federal commission to investigate the history of federal Indian boarding schools.

Congresswoman Sharice Davids said in a press release on February 6: “My grandparents are survivors of Indian Boarding Schools, but many other children never returned to their families or their communities. Those that did lost generations worth of cultural knowledge, stories, and traditions.” Davids is member of the Ho-Chunk Nation of Wisconsin, one of the first two Native American women elected to the U.S. Congress and Co-Chair of the Congressional Native American Caucus.

The Truth and Healing Commission on Indian Boarding School Policies Act was introduced in both the House and Senate on September 29, 2020 by former U.S. Representative Debra Haaland and Senator Elizabeth Warren. The bills aim to establish a formal commission that would investigate, document, and acknowledge past injustices of the federal government’s cultural genocide and assimilation practices through its Indian Boarding School Policy. The commission would also develop recommendations for Congress to aid in healing historical and intergenerational trauma in American Indian, Alaskan Native, and Native Hawaiian communities.

Davids re-introduced the Truth and Healing Commission on Indian Boarding School Policies Act on Sept. 30, 2021, after Haaland accepted her nomination to serve as the Secretary of Interior. Then, H.R.5444 aimed to establish a federal commission that would investigate federal Indian boarding schools along with S.2907. H.R.5444 received a hearing on May 12, 2022 in the House Natural Resources Committee, but did not receive a vote. S.2907 did not receive a hearing.

“Establishing a Truth and Healing Commission would bring survivors, experts, federal partners, and Tribal leaders to the table to fully investigate what happened to our relatives and work towards a brighter path for the next seven generations,” U.S. Rep. Davids said.

Senator Warren’s office said of her introduction of the bill in Sept. 2020: “The Indian Boarding School Policy was implemented by the federal government to strip American Indian and Alaska Native (AI/AN) children of their Indigenous identities, beliefs, and languages. Nearly 83 percent of AI/AN children, as young as 5 years old, were forcibly removed from their Tribal lands and families to be enrolled in one of 367 Indian boarding schools across 30 states, resulting in human rights violations including spiritual, physical, psychological, and sexual abuse and violence.

The full effects of the Indian Boarding School Policy have never been appropriately addressed, resulting in long-standing historical and intergenerational trauma, cycles of violence and abuse, disappearance, premature deaths, and additional undocumented psychological trauma. Furthermore, the residual impact of the Indian Boarding School Policy remains evident in a lack of culturally inclusive and affirming curricula and historically inaccurate representation of AI/AN people, history, and contributions.”

The law would establish a formal commission to investigate the impacts and ongoing effects of the Indian Boarding School Policies, where past federal policies removed American Indian, Alaska Native, and Native Hawaiian children from their family homes and placed in boarding schools. The commission would also organize a forum for survivors to share their personal experiences including potential human rights violations and then develop recommendations to (1) protect unmarked graves and accompanying land protections; (2) support repatriation and identify the tribal nations from which children were taken; and (3) discontinue the removal of American Indian, Alaska Native, and Native Hawaiian children from their families and tribal communities by state social service departments, foster care agencies, and adoption agencies.

Congressman Tom Cole, an enrolled member of the Chickasaw Nation of Oklahoma and Co-Chair of the Congressional Native American Caucus said of his introduction of H.R. 7227: “For too long, the stories of Native children stripped of their heritage, families, and lives were hidden. We must bring the light of truth to this dark chapter in our nation’s history and establishing this commission is imperative to that. It will provide needed answers and build a pathway to healing for survivors and tribal families. Turning acknowledgment into action will help ensure the harms of the past are never repeated.”

After Deb Haaland was appointed as Secretary Interior, she launched the Federal Indian Boarding School Initiative, where the federal government later acknowledged for the first time in its history that it operated federal Indian boarding schools. Under Haaland’s direction, Assistant Secretary Newland’s agency, the Bureau of Indian Affairs, would lead the yearlong investigation followed by another year of listening sessions throughout the United States.

The investigation’s first report, published in May 2022, found that from 1819 to 1969, the federal Indian boarding school system consisted of 408 federal schools across 37 states or then territories, including 21 schools in Alaska and 7 schools in Hawaii. The investigation identified marked or unmarked burial sites at approximately 53 different schools across the system. As the investigation continues, the Department expects the number of identified burial sites to increase. An additional report regarding the Federal Indian Boarding School Initiative is expected in the future, but it is unknown when.

“We said we were going to get that done, and come out with it because it’s going to include some important information and it’s going to add more to the story that needs to be told about the federal Indian boarding school system,” said Assistant Secretary – Indian Affairs Bryan Newland in an interview with Native Sun News Today. “We still intend on publishing the next report this year.”

The Truth and Healing Commission on Indian Boarding School Policies Act of 2024 is bipartisan and has already received support from Minneapolis-based Native American Boarding School Healing Coalition (NABS).

“I’m grateful to all those who continue this work,” said Christine Diindiisi McCleave, a Turtle Mountain Chippewa member and former NABS CEO, in an interview with Native Sun News Today. McCleave helped write the 2020 and 2021 versions of the bill. “Lets hope the rest of Congress does its job and passes the act to give us the truth, healing and justice we deserve as the original people of this land.”

(Contact Darren Thompson at darrenjthompson@hotmail.com)

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