Michigan tribal boarding school report sought apology. Instead, it was shelved

A shelved, taxpayer-funded report on tribal boarding schools recommended an apology for Michigan's role in the deaths and abuse of Native American children.

As first reported by Bridge Michigan, that $1.1 million report was never released, and a summary presented to the Legislature left out recommendations made by the consulting firm. Bridge obtained a copy of the 300-page report, which includes accounts by survivors of abuse in the homes, as well as glimpses of the roles the state and communities played in the federally funded boarding schools that closed more than 40 years ago.

Now, a House appropriations subcommittee has scheduled a hearing Feb. 27 about the report and why it was scrapped after its completion in September.

''We'd like to get some understanding of why we spent over a million dollars on a 300-page report and then threw the report in the garbage can,'' said Rep. Tom Kuhn, R-Troy, chair of the general government subcommittee.

The Department of Civil Rights, which oversaw the report and then chose not to release it to the public or the Legislature, has declined an invitation to testify, he said.

An invitation to appear at the hearing has been extended to Kauffman and Associates, the Oregon firm that conducted the study, but Kuhn hasn't yet received a reply.

The Department of Civil Rights did not return a request for comment Monday, which was a federal holiday.

Michigan officials blasted the report as too ''shoddy'' to show to the public, Kaufman accused the state of ''whitewashing'' findings.

Michigan's tribes had hoped a report would document the abuses and deaths of Native American children over more than a century in state boarding schools, as well as determine the extent to which the state and local municipalities were involved.

There were at least 417 federal-operated Indian boarding schools in 37 states in the 19th and 20th centuries, according to the Federal Indian Boarding School Initiative Investigative Report, released in 2024.

Five federal boarding schools were located in Michigan, in Baraga, Mackinac Island, Schoolcraft County, Mt. Pleasant and Harbor Springs

The National Native American Boarding School Healing Coalition lists three additional boarding schools, in Marquette, Omena and Assinins.

At the schools, children weren't allowed to speak native language or wear Native American clothing. Some were given non-native names. Physical and sexual abuse were common, according the Michigan report.

There is no known documentation of the number of children who were taken from families and shipped to boarding schools in Michigan, or the number who died at those schools

The Saginaw Chippewa Indian Tribe of Michigan documented 229 students who died at the Indian Industrial Boarding School in Mt. Pleasant from 1893 and 1934, when the school closed. Only five of the deaths were officially documented by the school.

The boarding schools were launched and funded by the federal government, but Native Americans maintain that the state and local communities supported the schools.

For example, one document in the 300-page report — but not included in the 16-page summary released by the Department of Civil Rights — is a 1923 letter from the superintendent of a boarding school in Mr. Pleasant, to the step-father of a child who had run away. In that letter, the superintendent writes that if the child does not return to school, ''I will be compelled to place the matter in the hands of the sheriff,'' who is a county official.

''How do you have these mass graves and children never coming home, other kids saw. So, how would it be possible that the state didn't know?''

The final report included recommendations for the state, although the state's directions to the firm did not ask for recommendations.

Those recommendations include:

1. An executive order apology by the governor that ''recognizes its deliberate participation in the national policy of Native American boarding schools.'' In 2024, President Joe Biden issued an apology for the federal government's role in the boarding schools. Some states have attempted to come to grips with their histories. Colorado issued a report in 2023. Wisconsin issued an acknowledgement and apology, as did New York.

2. Utilize subpoena power in a subsequent investigation to ''ensure full archival research is completed, including denominational archives.'' That could be possible in a criminal investigation of boarding school abuses announced recently by the Attorney General's office.

4. Fund Native American language revitalization programs in schools and communities.

The attorney general's investigation is modeled after that office's clergy abuse investigation which reviewed millions of pages of documents from Michigan's Catholic dioceses, which also operated some of the state's boarding schools.

Danielle Hagaman-Clark, criminal bureau chief in the AG's office, told Bridge in January that criminal charges may be slim in the boarding school investigation — the last boarding school closed 42 years ago, so some perpetrators may be dead or the statute of limitations will have run out.

But there is still value in accountability, Hagaman-Clark said.

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