LEELANAU CO. — The state of Michigan has released a redacted report on tribal schools and potential abuses against generations of Native Americans.
The state originally opted to shelve the report, which drew pushback from lawmakers who had previously approved more than a million dollars for the study.
The analysis has reignited discussions about how best to reflect the practice’s uncomfortable and sometimes violent history.
“For over a century, the united states and the state of Michigan engaged in a partnership that operated an educational system designed as a mechanism for forced cultural transition,” said Sandra Witherspoon, chairperson of the Grand Traverse Band of Ottawa and Chippewa Indians.
A Michigan House committee held a hearing on the report and its release last week, where Witherspoon and others testified.
The Michigan Department of Civil Rights had previously refrained from releasing the report due to concerns about the collection of information and potential for re-traumatization.
The released draft of the report does include redactions, mostly within personal accounts from boarding school survivors or descendants.
Jo Ann Kauffman is president and founder of the firm that authored the report. She defended the work as thorough and up to the expected standards.
“As researchers and as native people, we are obligated to reflect the fullness of the historical record and the voices entrusted to bear witness to these historical events and generational impacts,” she said.
Witherspoon told the committee that work toward accountability must continue despite disagreements over the exact content.
“Justice is not found in an apology alone — it is found in pursuit of accountability for those who turned the Indian boarding schools into trauma sites that reach into our present lives,” she said.
The Department of Civil Rights did not testify at the hearing due to ongoing litigation.
But executive director John Johnson Jr. says in a statement that the report as completed “raises unsupported legal and historical assertions that are not independently verified or corroborated.”