DUBAI: At least $1.6 million in federal funds for projects meant to capture and digitize stories of the systemic abuse of generations of Indigenous children in boarding schools at the hands of the US government have been slashed due to federal funding cuts under President Donald Trump’s administration.
The cuts are just a fraction of the grants canceled by the National Endowment for the Humanities in recent weeks as part of the Trump administration’s deep cost-cutting effort across the federal government. But coming on the heels of a major federal boarding school investigation by the previous administration and an apology by then-President Joe Biden, they illustrate a seismic shift.
“If we’re looking to ‘Make America Great Again,’ then I think it should start with the truth about the true American history,” said Deborah Parker, CEO of the National Native American Boarding School Healing Coalition.
The coalition lost more than $282,000 as a result of the cuts, halting its work to digitize more than 100,000 pages of boarding school records for its database. Parker, a citizen of the Tulalip Tribes in Washington state, said Native Americans nationwide depend on the site to find loved ones who were taken or sent to these boarding schools.
Searching that database last year, Roberta “Birdie” Sam, a member of Tlingit & Haida, was able to confirm that her grandmother had been at a boarding school in Alaska. She also discovered that around a dozen cousins, aunts and uncles had also been at a boarding school in Oregon, including one who died there. She said the knowledge has helped her with healing.
“I understand why our relationship has been the way it has been. And that’s been a great relief for myself,” she said. “I’ve spent a lot of years very disconnected from my family, wondering what happened. And now I know — some of it anyways.”
An April 2 letter to the healing coalition that was signed by Michael McDonald, acting chairman of the National Endowment for the Humanities, says the “grant no longer effectuates the agency’s needs and priorities.”
The Associated Press left messages by phone and email for the National Endowment for the Humanities. White House officials and the Office of Management and Budget also did not respond Friday to an email requesting comment.
Indigenous children were sent to boarding schools. For 150 years the US removed Indigenous children from their homes and sent them away to the schools, where they were stripped of their cultures, histories and religions, and beaten for speaking their native languages.
At least 973 Native American children died at government-funded boarding schools, according to an Interior Department investigation launched by former Interior Secretary Deb Haaland. Both the report and independent researchers say the actual number was much higher.
The forced assimilation policy officially ended with the enactment of the Indian Child Welfare Act in 1978. But the government never fully investigated the boarding school system until the Biden administration.
In October, Biden apologized for the government’s creation of the schools and the policies that supported them.
Haaland, a Laguna Pueblo citizen who’s running for governor in New Mexico, described the recent cuts as the latest step in the Trump administration’s “pattern of hiding the full story of our country.” But she said they can’t erase the extensive work already done.
“They cannot undo the healing communities felt as they told their stories at our events to hear from survivors and descendants,” she said in a statement. “They cannot undo the investigation that brings this dark chapter of our history to light. They cannot undo the relief Native people felt when President Biden apologized on behalf of the United States.”
Boarding school research programs are feeling the strain. Among the grants terminated earlier this month was $30,000 for a project between the Koahnic Broadcast Corporation and Alaska Native Heritage Center to record and broadcast oral histories of elders in Alaska. Koahnic received an identical letter from McDonald.
Benjamin Jacuk, the Alaska Native Heritage Center’s director of Indigenous research, said the news came around the same time they lost about $100,000 through a Institute of Museum and Library Services grant for curating a boarding school exhibit.
“This is a story that for all of us, we weren’t able to really hear because it was so painful or for multitudes of reasons,” said Jacuk, a citizen of Kenaitze Indian Tribe. “And so it’s really important right now to be able to record these stories that our elders at this point are really opening up to being able to tell.”
Former Assistant Secretary of Indian Affairs Bryan Newland described the cuts as frustrating, especially given the size of the grants.
“It’s not even a drop in the ocean when it comes to the federal budget,” said Newland, a citizen of the Bay Mills Indian Community (Ojibwe). “And so it’s hard to argue that this is something that’s really promoting government efficiency or saving taxpayer funds.”
In April 2024, the National Endowment for the Humanities announced that it was awarding $411,000 to more than a dozen tribal nations and organizations working to illustrate the impact of these boarding schools. More than half of those awards have since been terminated. The grant cuts were documented by the non-profit organization National Humanities Alliance.
John Campbell, a member of Tlingit and the Tulalip Tribes, said the coalition’s database helped him better understand his parents, who were both boarding school survivors and “passed on that tradition of being traumatized.”
When he was growing up, his mother used to put soap in his mouth when he said a bad word. He said he learned through the site that she experienced that punishment beginning when she was 6-years-old in a boarding school in Washington state when she would speak her language. “She didn’t talk about it that much,” he said. “She didn’t want to talk about it either. It was too traumatic.”
Trump administration makes major cuts to Native American boarding school research projects
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Trump administration makes major cuts to Native American boarding school research projects
- The cuts are just a fraction of the grants canceled by the National Endowment for the Humanities in recent weeks as part of the Republican administration’s deep cost-cutting effort across the federal
- At least $1.6 million in federal funds for projects meant to capture and digitize stories of the systemic abuse of generations of Indigenous children in boarding schools
US intel did not suggest a preemptive strike from Iran before US-Israeli attacks, AP sources say
- The official said a variety of factors created a golden opportunity to take out much of Iran’s leadership
WASHINGTON: Trump administration officials told congressional staff in private briefings Sunday that US intelligence did not suggest Iran was preparing to launch a preemptive strike against the US, three people familiar with the briefings said.
The administration officials instead acknowledged there was a more general threat in the region from Iran’s missiles and proxy forces, two of the people said. The third person, however, said the administration emphasized that Iran’s missiles and proxy forces posed an imminent threat to US personnel and allies in the region.
The officials did not provide any clarity about what would happen next in Iran after the joint US-Israeli operation, the two people said. All three people insisted on anonymity to discuss details that have not been made public.
The information conveyed to the congressional staff contrasts with the message from President Donald Trump. “Our objective is to defend the American people by eliminating imminent threats from the Iranian regime. A vicious group of very hard, terrible people,” he said in a video message after launching strikes on Iran.
Senior Trump administration officials, who like others were not authorized to comment publicly and spoke on condition of anonymity, had told reporters Saturday that there were indicators that the Iranians could launch a preemptive attack.
The White House and Pentagon did not immediately reply to requests for comment on Sunday night. Details of the briefing were first reported by Politico.
On Tuesday, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, CIA Director John Ratcliffe and Gen. Dan Caine, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, will brief the full membership of Congress on the US military operation against Iran, the White House said Sunday. Rubio also was slated to brief Hill leadership Monday, the same day Hegseth and Caine are planning a press conference about the operation.
Three strikes, three locations, within a single minute
The military operation came after authorities from Israel and the US spent weeks tracking the movements of senior Iranian leaders, including Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, and shared information that allowed the strikes to be carried out in a surprise daylight attack, according to an Israeli military official and another person familiar with the operation.
The eventual barrage of US-Israeli attacks on Iran came so quickly that they were nearly simultaneous — with three strikes in three locations hitting within a single minute — killing Khamenei and some 40 senior figures, including the head of the paramilitary Revolutionary Guard and the country’s defense minister, the Israeli military official said Sunday.
The official said a variety of factors created a golden opportunity to take out much of Iran’s leadership, like weeks of training and monitoring the movements of senior figures as well as intelligence in real-time before the attack began that key targets were gathered together.
Striking by day also gave an additional element of surprise, said the official, who said so many major, rapid-fire strikes were critical to keep key officials from fleeing after the first strike. The official said Israel closely cooperated with its US counterparts and had used a similar tactic at the beginning of last June’s war — which resulted in the killing of several senior Iranian figures.
The official also noted Khamenei having posted defiant tweets taunting President Donald Trump in the days before the attack.
The details about the strikes came as the conflict entered its second day, with Trump saying in a video message Sunday that he expected it would continue until “all of our objectives are achieved.” He did not spell out what those objectives were.
The Republican president also said the US military and its partners hit hundreds of targets in Iran, including Revolutionary Guard facilities, Iranian air defense systems and nine warships, “all in a matter of literally minutes.”
CIA had long tracked top Iranian leaders
Before the attacks, the CIA had for months tracked the movements of senior Iranian leaders, including Khamenei.
The intelligence was shared with Israeli officials, and the timing of the strikes was adjusted in part because of that information about the Iranian leaders’ location, according to the person familiar with the planning.
The intelligence-sharing between US and Israel reflects the preparation that went into the strikes, which threw the future of the Islamic Republic into uncertainty and raised the risk of escalating regional conflict.
The US regularly shares intelligence with allies including Israel. Those partnerships, and the accuracy of the intelligence they yield, is often critical not only to the success of a military operation but also to the public’s support for it.
Virginia Sen. Mark Warner, the senior Democrat on the committee, told The Associated Press that, historically, “our working relationship with the Mossad and Israel is really strong.” Mossad is the Israeli spy agency.
Warner said he has serious concerns about the justification for the strikes, Trump’s long-term plans for the conflict and the risks that US service members will face. The military announced Sunday that three American troops had been killed in the Iran operation.
“No tears will be shed over their leadership being eliminated, but always the question is: OK, what next?” Warner said.
Iran has signaled it’s open to talks with the US
A senior White House official said Iran’s “new potential leadership” has suggested it is open to talks with the United States. That official, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss internal administration deliberations, said Trump has indicated he’s “eventually” willing to talk but that for now the military operation “continues unabated.”
The official did not say who the potential new Iranian leaders are or how they made their alleged willingness to talk known. Separately, Trump told The Atlantic that he planned to speak with Iran’s new leadership.
“They want to talk, and I have agreed to talk, so I will be talking to them,” he said Sunday, declining comment on the timing.
