Sponsor
Sharice Davids
Representative · D-KS
Representative · D-KS
The bill trades formal federal acknowledgment and documentation of boarding school harms — which can enable healing, research, and possible reparations for Indigenous communities — against risks of retraumatization, public costs, and complex legal and governance consequences.
American Indian, Alaska Native, and Native Hawaiian communities would receive a formal federal investigation documenting harms from boarding schools, increasing public acknowledgment and creating a factual record that can support reparative actions and historical accountability.
Federal acknowledgement could prompt coordinated action by agencies (Interior, BIE, HHS/CDC) to study and address intergenerational trauma and related health disparities, improving access to culturally appropriate research, services, and public-health responses for affected communities.
Public documentation of records and unmarked graves would help families locate relatives and support culturally appropriate grieving, healing, and closure for parents, children, and communities.
Survivors, families, and tribal communities could be retraumatized if disclosure of sensitive records and grave site information is handled without adequate cultural safeguards and trauma-informed supports.
Taxpayers would bear the administrative and investigative costs of a federal inquiry, potentially without guaranteed compensation or new services for affected individuals.
Federal findings could spur legal claims, demands for reparations, and political disputes that increase governance complexity and resource demands on federal and state agencies.
Based on analysis of 2 sections of legislative text.
Establishes congressional findings documenting harms from Indian boarding school policies and asserts the need for a federal investigative commission to document and expose those harms.
Official title: Recognizing the week of September 30th as "National Orange Shirt Week" or "National Week of Remembrance", which aims to honor those who were forced to attend Indian boarding schools, and to recognize the experience of Indian boarding school victims and survivors.
Introduced October 8, 2025 by Sharice Davids · Last progress October 8, 2025
Declares documented findings about the history and harms of Indian boarding school assimilation policies that targeted American Indian, Alaska Native, and Native Hawaiian children from the early 19th century through the 1960s and beyond. It summarizes forced removals, cultural and religious indoctrination, abuse, unmarked graves, missing records, intergenerational trauma, health disparities, elevated PTSD and suicide rates, and ongoing problems in Bureau of Indian Education-operated schools, and concludes these facts demonstrate the need for a federal investigative commission to document and expose those policies and harms. The text cites research and federal and nonprofit reports and a Secretary of the Interior memorandum to support the findings and to justify forming a national-level inquiry into boarding school assimilation and termination efforts.