Michigan spent three years and $1.1 million to study the state’s Native American boarding schools, then refused to release the report to the public.
Michigan officials blasted the report as too “shoddy” to show to the public, while the Native American firm hired to conduct the study accused the state of “whitewashing” the issue.
The report was completed in October, but few have seen it. Michigan’s Department of Civil Rights, which oversaw its production, declined to provide Bridge Michigan a copy. Even a frustrated member of the Civil Rights Commission, which sets policy for the department, asked in October if the board needed to file a Freedom of Information Act request to view it.
“It sounds to me like it (the report) is just going to be put on the shelf with dust on it,” commission member Regina Gasco, who until recently was the chairperson of the Little Traverse Bay Bands of Odawa Indians, said at a commission meeting in October.
“What about all these survivors who came and testified? We talked to these people and assured them that this is the time we’re listening.”
Gov. Gretchen Whitmer requested the research in 2022, the same year the US Department of Interior issued its initial findings in a first-ever report about the schools.
Michigan’s tribes had hoped a state 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 in the tragedy.
“It sounds to me like it (the report) is just going to be put on the shelf with dust on it. What about all these survivors who came and testified? We talked to these people and assured them that this is the time we’re listening.”REGINA GASCO | commission member and former chairperson of the Little Traverse Bay Bands of Odawa Indians
Instead, tribal leaders are frustrated by a failed effort that leaves them no closer to answers some families have been seeking for generations.
“We’re all disappointed,” said Alfredo Hernandez, equity and inclusion officer for the Department of Civil Rights.
While that study flopped, another is just starting. Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel has opened its own criminal investigation to try to provide accountability for the abuses.
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.
The last one, Holy Childhood of Jesus Catholic Church and Indian School in Harbor Springs, closed in 1983.
Another 1,025 non-federal institutions, many run by churches, didn’t meet the federal criteria to be considered federal boarding schools, but also participated in the forcible relocation of Native American children, including 30 in Michigan, according to the federal report.
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 to the federal report.
There is no known documentation of the number of Native American 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 between 1893 and 1934, when the school closed. Only five of the deaths were officially documented by the school.
The buildings, which remain standing, are now controlled by the Saginaw Chippewa tribe.
There are no documented deaths at Michigan’s other 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.
The Michigan Legislature appropriated money for the report in 2023, hoping it would “address the history of what happened in boarding schools in Michigan and how the State of Michigan contributed to this system,” according to a Nov. 30 letter sent to legislative leaders in November from Department of Civil Rights Executive Director John Johnson Jr.
Johnson declined to share the completed report with the Legislature, saying the study produced by Washington-based Kauffman and Associates was “difficult to read and lacked the substance” the state sought.
But in a letter to the Civil Rights Department, Kauffman and Associates put the blame on state officials, saying the consulting firm had “significant ethical concerns” about the editing of the report.
“It’s important for us to know the truth of what happened in order for us to learn from it. The government hasn’t always done the best, and can still strive to do better.”STATE REP. CARRIE RHEINGANS | D-Ann Arbor
The firm contends it was asked to cut an initial 350-page report to 50 pages, and that references to potential connections to local government involvement be eliminated.
“We are fully committed to finding a solution that supports transparency and accuracy, without whitewashing, sanitizing, or misrepresenting the experiences of Native American boarding school survivors and their descendants in Michigan,” wrote Kauffman CEO Kevin Keefe.
Keefe told Bridge Michigan the legal counsel for the Attorney General’s office ordered the references to local cities, townships and counties be cut.
Attorney General spokesperson Kim Bush said the office “provided legal advice to our clients regarding this report. The Department of Civil Rights’ report to the Legislature details some of the issues with the consultant’s work, including whether the report met the criteria set forth by the legislature and whether the consultant obtained informed consent from the participants in the Michigan Native American Boarding School Study.”
While the launch of the study received public attention, even some tribal advocates were unaware it wasn’t going to be released.
Rep. Carrie Rheingans, D-Ann Arbor, who sponsored legislation creating a tribal liaison legislative office, told Bridge she wasn’t aware the report had been shelved.
“It’s important for us to know the truth of what happened in order for us to learn from it,” she said. “The government hasn’t always done the best, and can still strive to do better.”
Nessel’s office recently launched a criminal investigation into abuses at Native American boarding schools, 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.
In December, the office released a report alleging sexual misconduct by 51 priests in the Grand Rapids Diocese dating back to 1950.
Danielle Hagaman-Clark, criminal bureau chief in the AG’s office, told Bridge 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.
“It’s an opportunity for people to share their stories and explore prosecutions if it’s still available,” she said. “We will use every resource at our fingertips.”
Hagaman-Clark said she is unaware of other states that have attempted to pursue a criminal investigation of boarding school abuses.
The attorney general’s office has received calls from boarding school survivors since the investigation was announced in December, and a project manager was hired to oversee the effort.
Those with information about abuses in Native American boarding schools can contact the attorney general’s office by email at AG-NBSInvestigation@michigan.gov, or by calling the Native Boarding School Investigation tip line at 517-897-7391. Tips can be left anonymously.
This article first appeared on Bridge Michigan and is republished here under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.
