Don’t call it Genocide: Proposed Michigan legislation on the history of Native Boarding Schools is almost the exact language of the anti-CRT legislation

Last Monday, MLive reported that there is currently a bill in the State Legislature that would “encourage” public schools in Michigan to teach about the history of Native Boarding Schools. 

The MLive article states: 

Sen. Wayne Schmidt, R-Traverse City, introduced Senate Bill 876 in February in an effort to raise awareness about the history of Indian boarding schools in Michigan and encourage the State Board of Education to include the material in statewide curriculum standards.

Senator Schmidt goes on to say: 

“It is important to recognize the fact that Indian boarding schools did exist in our state — even as recent as the mid-1980s. Working with tribal leaders, educators, and Indian boarding school survivors and their families, we introduced this legislation so we do not forget, nor repeat, this dark part of our state and nation’s history.”

Such an admission is encouraging, especially considering all of the pushback against Critical Race Theory across the country and in Michigan. Two of the major aspects of Critical Race Theory includes 1) the enslavement of Black people, followed by Jim Crow laws, and 2) the genocidal policies by the US government against Indigenous people.

It is interesting that if one reads the language of the proposed legislation, it is unclear how Native Boarding Schools will be presented in public schools. Those cited in the MLive article never used the term genocide when referring to the Native Boarding Schools. The language of the proposed legislation reads:

The state board shall ensure 25 that the recommended model core academic curriculum content standards for history for grades 8 to 12 include learning objectives concerning genocide, including, but not limited to, the Holocaust and the Armenian Genocide. The state board is strongly encouraged to ensure that the recommended model core academic curriculum content standards for history for grades 8 to 12 include learning objectives concerning Indian boarding schools.

The text acknowledges the Holocaust – referring to the 6 Million Jewish people murdered by the German government during WWII and the Armenian Genocide, but the word genocide is not directly connected to the words “Indian boarding schools.” This issue should not be in question, since Native Boarding Schools were a form of genocide, as is laid out in the 1948 Convention on Genocide. Article II of the Genocide Convention states:

In the present Convention, genocide means any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such: 

1. Killing members of the group; 
2. Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group; 
3. Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part; 
4. Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group; 
5. Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group. 

Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group is exactly what both the State and Christian/Catholic Churches did to Native communities all across the country. Therefore, Native Boarding Schools should always be designated as a form of genocide.

I reached out to Joe Cadreau, an Indigenous activist in Grand Rapids, asking him to respond to this proposed legislation. He said: 

I mean it’s great that they are bringing it, and it is a step, not the end game. But to deny it was genocide is a concern of mine. My only hope is that more people like me who go into the schools to do these presentations, continue to call it exactly what it was, a genocide. 

They keep saying equity but only give us baby steps and tell us to be patient, I’m done being patient on this subject, you know? But I wonder if the whole vagueness is being used to not offend white feels, or to get the backlash that CRT is currently getting?  

I also reached out to Senator Winnie Brinks to ask why she was co-sponsoring the legislation. As of this writing, I have not heard back from her office.

It is too early to know if this proposed legislation will pass and I highly doubt that it will be a priority for those who co-sponsored the bill. Plus, with all of anti-Critical Race Theory rhetoric and HB 5097, which essentially would ban Critical Race Theory from being taught in Michigan Public Schools. What is particularly instructive is that the anti-CRT legislation HB 5097 is exactly the same as SB 876, except for this one line: 

The state board is strongly encouraged to ensure that the recommended model core academic curriculum content standards for history for grades 8 to 12 include learning objectives concerning Indian boarding schools.

The very fact that the proposed legislation to add teaching about Native Boarding Schools is essentially the same text that is used for the anti-CRT proposed legislation, demonstrates that State Legislators would at best want to water down the genocidal policies of the US government towards Indigenous people by never using the term genocide. If this legislation goes through it would be nothing short of revisionist history, or to more accurately put it, present history through the lens of Settler Colonialists.