Tribes Demand Full Accounting: Uncovering Funds Behind Native American Boarding Schools

Posted by The News Pulse May 22, 2025 Post a Comment

Multiple Native American tribes have initiated legal action requesting a federal court to compel the United States to disclose records related to the harsh boarding school system, which encompassed an establishment in Carlisle.

The Wichita and Affiliated Tribes along with the Washoe Tribe of Nevada and California have filed lawsuits against the Department of the Interior, including its Bureau of Indian Affairs and Bureau of Indian Education, as well as against its head, Interior Secretary Doug Burgum. The lawsuit alleges breaches of legal duties owed to the tribes through misappropriation of funds meant for them, which were instead used to finance acts of torture and genocide at federally run institutions. Indian Boarding Schools.

The lawsuit was initiated on Thursday in the U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Pennsylvania. It includes accusations under two counts and seeks classification as a class-action lawsuit.

It depends on two volumes of the boarding schools investigative report Released in 2022 and 2024, when the U.S. government acknowledges using funds seized from Native American tribes to finance the Indian Charter School Program.

Even though the figure rose into the billions, "the reality is clear: There has never been an accurate reckoning," the lawsuit stated.

The legal action aims to force the U.S. government to disclose all documents to account for a program that inflicted severe harm on multiple generations of Native American children and resulted in the deaths of over 5% of them, as indicated in the reports.

As part of securing lasting peace with the United States and relinquishing territories, the Native Nations requested that the U.S. provide education for their children. However, the federal government implemented the Federal Indian Boarding School Program not only to take away Native American lands but also to dismantle their cultural heritage, according to the report.

According to the report, the aim of these militarized institutions was to eliminate Native American culture by forcing students to take on new names and penalizing them for speaking their indigenous languages.

"The integration of Native American children via the federal Indian boarding school system was deliberate and aligned with the larger objective of acquiring their territory to facilitate the growth of the United States," according to the report.

Rather than offering genuine education, the United States isolated Native American children from their families and "deliberately attempted to eliminate their cultural heritage, inflicting numerous atrocities such as killings, torture, starvation, and sexual abuse, thereby causing immense harm to multiple generations."

It began at the Carlisle Indian Industrial School The first off-reservation school of its kind in America, which forcibly brought Native American children to Cumberland County for a militarized educational experience, according to the National Park Service.

Its purpose was to "eliminate the Indigenous person" to "rescue the human," as per the National Park Service .

In these 417 boarding schools spread across 37 states, children faced torture and sexual abuse as per the reports. Numerous children lost their lives at these facilities, with many being interred in unmarked graves within the school grounds.

At the same time, as documented in a minimum of 171 treaties, the federal government pledged to support Native American education in return for their ancestral lands and "perpetual peace."

The lawsuit doesn’t address the atrocities committed against generations of Native Americans. Instead, it concentrates exclusively on the U.S.’s federal trust duty and its commitment to accurately account for the funds belonging to Native Nations that were utilized to support the boarding school initiative.

The legal action seeks an order from a federal court compelling the United States to disclose a complete record of the funds taken from Native Nations that were utilized to finance the Federal Indian Boarding School Program.

That accounting would include:

The approximately $23.3 billion estimated to have been allocated for the boarding school program
Funds taken from Native Nations' Trust accounts for the boarding school initiative
How was that money combined?
The performance of funds entrusted to the federal government for investment purposes
The worth of the territory handed over in return for commitments regarding education
The "support stipulated by the treaty" utilized for the program
The worth created by child labor for institutional functions as well as via the Outing System to non-Indian households remains unchanged.
The financial damage inflicted by the Boarding School Programs
The leftover funds and assets belonging to Native Nations, which were seized by the United States and utilized for educating their children.

Native Nations are calling for the United States to maintain and make available through an online database all records connected to the boarding school initiative. Additionally, they seek to ensure that all materials utilized in compiling the said investigatory report be kept safe and preserved until a comprehensive and verified reckoning has been presented.

In October 2024, ex-President Joe Biden issued an apology for the boarding school program, describing it as a "substantial stain of disgrace" and a "blemish on American history."

Biden previously designated a national monument at the previous site of Carlisle Indian Industrial School , acting as the leadboarding institution for over 400 additional federal, non-tribal schools throughout the United States.

In April, the administration under President Donald Trump cut $1.6 million From initiatives aimed at recording and converting the narratives of boarding school survivors into digital format.

The United States Army disinterred several corpses from the Carlisle Barracks in the previous autumn and returned them to their respective tribes.

The Indigenous Communities are represented by Saltz Mongeluzzi Bendesky PC, Dicello Levitt LLP, Fields Han Cunniff PLLC, Selendy Gay PLLC, and All Rise! PLLC.