Deb Haaland Launches Review of 'Devastating' Native American Boarding Schools

The Interior Department probe will identify Indigenous children who died at schools the U.S. government forced them into for assimilation into white cult...

Interior Secretary Deb Haaland announced Tuesday that she is launching the Federal Indian Boarding School Truth Initiative, a first-of-its-kind comprehensive review of the “devastating history” of the U.S. government’s policy of forcing Native American children into boarding schools for assimilation into white culture. “At no time in history have the records or documentation of this policy been compiled or analyzed to determine the full scope of its reaches and effects,” Haaland said in remarks at a National Congress of American Indians conference. “We must uncover the truth about the loss of human life and the lasting consequences of these schools.” Under the new initiative, the Interior Department will investigate past boarding school facilities and sites, the location of known and possible burial sites near school facilities, and the identities and tribal affiliations of children who were taken there. The effort also serves as a starting point for improving public awareness of the former policy, which most Americans never learned about in school.