2025 - #002: SUPPORT FOR TRUTH AND HEALING ON INDIAN BOARDING SCHOOL LEGISLATION
WHEREAS, the National Indian Education Association (NIEA) was established in 1970 for the purpose of advocating, planning, and promoting the unique and special educational needs of American Indians, Alaska Natives, and Native Hawaiians; and
WHEREAS, NIEA as the largest national Native organization of American Indian, Alaska Native, and Native Hawaiian educators, administrators, parents, and students in the United States, provides a forum to discuss and act upon issues affecting the education of Indian and Native people; and
WHEREAS, schools for American Indian, Alaskan Native and Native Hawaiian student hostages employed practices including assimilation, corporal punishments, and child labor, which were often carried out without law or policy: and
WHEREAS, Federal Indian Boarding School policies were adopted by the United States government to strip American Indian, Alaska Native, and Native Hawaiian (Native) children of their Native identities, beliefs, and languages and to assimilate them to non-Indian culture through federally funded, Christian denomination schools, which had the effect of cultural genocide; and
WHEREAS, Indian boarding schools were created through the Indian Civilization Fund Act of 1819, which established authority to administer the education, healthcare, and rations promised to Tribal Nations under treaty law, and President Grant’s Peace Policy of 1868, which opened the Civilization Funds to be used by churches; and
WHEREAS, by 1926, nearly 83% of American Indians and Alaskan Native school-age children were enrolled in Indian boarding schools in the United States; however, because many of the school records have been lost or destroyed, the full extent of the Federal Indian Boarding School Policies and their resulting harms have not been identified; and
WHEREAS, the National Native Boarding School Healing Coalition (NABS) filed a freedom of Information Act request to the Bureau of Indian Affairs in 2016 asking how many Indian boarding schools the government funded, how many children attended, and how many went missing or died at the schools and the BIA responded that they could not answer because research would be needed; and
WHEREAS, the NABS has found 526 assimilative Indian boarding schools in the U.S. through independent research and has only been able to locate records from a small number of 526 identified boarding schools: and
WHEREAS, the NABS filed a submission to the United Nations in 2019 about children who went missing at Indian boarding schools in the U.S. whose whereabouts remain unknown; to date, the U.S. has not responded to these allegations or provided answers to where those children are; and
WHEREAS, the U.S. has never acknowledged that its Indian boarding school law and policies constituted acts of genocide according to the United Nations 1948 Geneva Convention; and
WHEREAS, understanding and recording these historical facts is essential to ensuring the United States does not repeat these actions in the future; and
WHEREAS, the deliberate intention of the U.S. federal government in enacting and executing its boarding school policies was the separation of American Indian children from their families, cultures, and Tribal communities through physical removal of their persons, cutting their hair, taking their clothing and issuing uniforms, forbidding them to speak their language or engage in any cultural practices, carrying out and/or allowing to be carried out were severe and often corporal punishments constituting, in many cases, physical, emotional, and mental torture for non-compliance, and, in reported cases, involuntary physical, emotional, and mental torture for non-compliance, and, in reported cases, involuntarily sterilizing some children, that, to this day, causes families to still mourn the loss of their children and lost future generations; and
WHEREAS, NIEA and NABS in partnership with other coalition members, a multitude of Native organizations, Tribal Nations, descendants, and national leaders, including Indian boarding school survivors, are in support of proposed legislation titled “Truth and Healing Commission on Indian Boarding School Policies Act of 2025” or other similar legislation; and
WHEREAS, the proposed legislation provided for an investigation about the loss of human life and the lasting consequences of residential Indian boarding schools, the primary goal of which will be used to identify boarding school facilities and sites, the location of known and possible student burial sites located at or near school facilities, and the identities and tribal affiliations of students interred at such locations.
NOW THEREFORE BE IT RESOLVED, that the National Indian Education Association (NIEA) does hereby support and urge Congress to pass the bipartisan “Truth and Healing Commission on Indian Boarding School Policies Act” or similar legislation, which would provide for investigation of the Indian boarding school era; and
BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED, the NIEA calls upon the United States Congress to conduct oversight hearings, including field hearings, as well as legislative hearings; and
BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED, that NIEA supports the efforts of Tribal Nations, families, and organizations seeking information regarding Indian boarding schools and Federal Indian Boarding School policies; and
BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED, that NIEA calls upon the federal government to comply with all requests and efforts to obtain information regarding Indian boarding schools and associated laws, policies, and actions by families, descendants, Tribal Nations, Alaskan Native Villages, and Native Hawaiians, as well as Native organizations and coalitions working on their behalf, and to cooperate with current initiatives through the Federal Freedom of Information Act, the United Nations Working Group on Enforced and Involuntary Disappearances, and other applicable international mechanisms; and
BE IT FINALLY RESOLVED, that this resolution shall be the policy of NIEA until it is withdrawn or modified by subsequent resolution.