Legislation passed through the Senate Indian Affairs Committee with bipartisan support today would establish a formal commission to investigate, document, and acknowledge past injustices of the federal government’s Indian Boarding School Policies
Washington, D.C. – This afternoon, legislation that seeks healing for stolen Native children and their communities passed through the Senate Committee on Indian Affairs with bipartisan support. U.S. Senators Patty Murray (D-WA), Chair of the Senate Appropriations Committee, and Maria Cantwell (D-WA), a senior member of the Senate Committee on Indian Affairs, introduced the legislation with 25 of their colleagues last month. The Truth and Healing Commission on Indian Boarding School Policies in the United States Act (S.1723) would establish a formal commission to investigate, document, and acknowledge the injustices of the federal government’s Indian boarding school policies. These policies include the ordered termination of Native cultures, religions, and languages; the removal and kidnapping of Native children; forced assimilation; and egregious human rights violations. The commission would also develop recommendations for how Congress could provide aid to Native families and communities and provide a forum for victims to speak about their personal experiences.
“It’s long past time for our government to fully come to terms with the horrific legacy of Indian boarding schools, which were designed to systematically strip away Native culture, religion, and heritage—in brutal and traumatic ways,” said Senator Murray. “Establishing a Truth and Healing Commission will be an important step forward in helping Native families and communities in Washington state and across the country heal from this painful chapter in our nation’s history. As a voice for Washington state’s Tribes in the Senate, I will continue to fight for those harmed by the legacy of the Indian boarding school system and ensure that the U.S. government acknowledges and lives up to our commitment to Tribal communities.”
“S. 1723 will help our Native and indigenous communities by creating a Commission to help guide the healing journey, and will do so through acknowledging the lasting impacts of forced assimilation through the Indian Boarding schools and developing recommendations to the federal government that will focus on native voices being heard,” Senator Cantwell said at today’s hearing. “To get to this result, we know that we have to not hide from the past. Generations of Tribal communities need to achieve justice and heal, and the truth must be acknowledged.”
The Indian boarding school policies were implemented by the federal government to strip American Indian and Alaska Native children of their identities, beliefs, and languages. Nearly 83 percent of American Indian and Alaska Native 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, disappearances, and deaths. The full effects of Indian boarding school policies have never been appropriately addressed, resulting in long-standing historical and intergenerational trauma and cycles of violence and abuse. Furthermore, the residual impact of Indian boarding school policies remains evident in the acute lack of culturally inclusive and affirming curricula and historically inaccurate representation of American Indian and Alaska Native people, history, and contributions.
There were 15 Indian boarding schools in the State of Washington. In April, as part of her “Road to Healing” tour, U.S. Secretary of the Interior Deb Haaland met with Native survivors of the federal Indian boarding school system and their descendants in Tulalip.
Senator Murray has consistently fought to secure funding and support for Tribal communities, including successfully securing increased funding for the Indian Housing Block Grant Program and the Indian Health Service through her role on the Senate Appropriations Committee. Senator Murray successfully fought to update the Violence Against Women Act to better protect Native women and fought to deliver the largest-ever federal investment in Tribes in the American Rescue Plan to support Tribal communities as they confronted the health and economic impacts of the pandemic.
As a senior member and former chair of the Indian Affairs Committee, Senator Cantwell voted in favor of the legislation and has been vocal in her support of developing a Commission to help provide healing and justice. She has consistently worked to protect tribal sovereignty and support the economic growth of tribal communities. Senator Cantwell has also been a leading voice on missing and murdered Indigenous women. In 2020, Senator Cantwell’s Savanna’s Act was signed into law. The law helps federal, state, and tribal law enforcement agencies better respond to cases of missing and murdered Indigenous women and people (MMIWP). Recently, Senator Cantwell hosted a press conference and roundtable on May 5th, the National Day of Awareness for Missing and Murdered Native Women and Girls, to increase awareness of the MMIWP crisis and to talk about ways to work with tribal communities to increase support for public safety.
The legislation is endorsed by the National Native American Boarding School Healing Coalition (NABS), National Congress of American Indians (NCAI), National Indian Education Association (NIEA), National Indian Health Board (NIHB), National Council of Urban Indian Health (NCUIH), National Indian Child Welfare Association (NICWA), American Indian Higher Education Consortium (AIHEC), National Indigenous Women’s Resource Center (NIWRC), Seattle Indian Health Board (SIHB), Jesuit Conference of Canada and the United States, Friends Committee on National Legislation (FNCL), and United South and Eastern Tribes Sovereignty Protection Fund (USET SPF).
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