Tears, anger at Michigan hearing on bungled tribal boarding school report

A tear-filled hearing on Michigan’s tribal boarding schools included accounts of physical, sexual abuse
Some tribal leaders urged additional funding for a new report, after an initial $1.1 million study was shelved
Tribal leaders recommended state funding for mental health and substance use disorder

A taxpayer-funded report on Michigan’s tribal boarding schools — and the state’s decision to shelve the report — drew anger and tears from survivors at a House committee hearing Thursday.

While there was no consensus about whether to release the report, many urged the state to budget more money for a second, more thorough investigation chronicling a century of abuse suffered by Native American children.

That may be a tough sell. The Republican chairperson who scheduled the hearing told Bridge Michigan that he has doubts about giving more money to the same Democratic-led departments that he believes bungled the initial report.

“They already had ($1.1 million) to complete this report,” said Rep. Tom Kuhn, R-Troy, chair of the general government subcommittee. “I’m disappointed with how (The Department of) Civil Rights and the Attorney General’s office has handled this.”

As first reported by Bridge, a long-awaited study of the state’s Native American boarding schools was not released to the public as planned, with one state administrator calling the report “shoddy.”

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Bridge obtained a copy of the 300-page report, which included harrowing recollections of physical and sexual abuse from survivors and descendants of survivors. The report, written by Washington-based Kauffman and Associates, a Native American consulting firm, recommended Michigan join other states in issuing an apology for its role in the forcible removal of Native American children from their homes.

Michigan was home to five of the 417 federally operated American Indian boarding schools in the 19th and 20th centuries that sought to assimilate tribal children by banning traditional language or attire.

Tuesday’s hearing included testimony from Holy Childhood School of Jesus in Harbor Springs, which was the last tribal boarding school to close in 1983. Witnesses recounted physical and sexual abuse, as well as punishments for speaking their native language.

Sandra Witherspoon, chairperson of the Grand Traverse Band of Ottawa and Chippewa Indians, and Winnay Wemigwase, chairperson of the Little Traverse Bay Bands of Ottawa Indians, both spoke haltingly of their own experiences and those of their relatives in Michigan boarding schools. While an accounting of the abuses is important for historical purposes, the recounting of abuses is “opening old wounds,” Wemigwase said.

Rodney Loonsfoot, a council member of the Keweenaw Bay Indian Community, acknowledged that “many of the original files remain inaccessible or (lost),” making documentation difficult. “We know there are many files we do not have access to,” he said.

He urged the state to provide funding for another report that delves deeper into records, to “finish telling our story.”

Rep. Carrie Rheingans, D-Ann Arbor, told Bridge she would support more money, but that “I don’t know that we’d have a majority.”

Rheingans said she will advocate for a different use of state funding related to the harm caused by boarding schools — state money for tribal mental health and substance use disorder treatment.

Several leaders of Michigan tribes recommended funding for those services at Thursday’s hearing.

“Some of these things are going to take longer than what politicians are comfortable waiting,” Rheingans said. “It gook generations for these harms to happen, and it may take generations for the healing. We need to stop delaying and do what the tribes are asking for.”