Senator blocks confirmation of first Native American federal judge
U.S. Senator Steve Daines, a Republican from Montana and member of the Senate Committee on Indian Affairs, has blocked President Joe Biden’s pick, a Native American woman, to serve as a federal judge in Montana.
Biden in late April tapped Danna Jackson, a tribal attorney for the Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes in Montana, as his choice to serve on the U.S. District Court for the District of Montana.
U.S. Senator Jon Tester, a Democrat from Montana, lauded her nomination.
“Danna Jackson has a proven track record of applying the law with fairness and integrity throughout her legal career, and I have no doubt that she’ll bring these high standards to the federal judiciary and District of Montana,” he said in an April 24 statement.
But Daines complained that Biden had not consulted with him before naming her.
“Federal judges in Montana are crushing our way of life because they legislate from the bench. Montanans want judges who will bring balance to our courts and uphold the Constitution,” he said in a statement.
If confirmed, Danna Jackson would be the first Native American to serve as a federal judge in that state, a lifetime position.
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Feds to work with South Dakota school district to ensure rights of Native students
The U.S. Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights, or OCR, says that the Rapid City Area Schools district in South Dakota has resolved to take action to ensure compliance with the Civil Rights Act of 1964 in how it teaches and disciplines students.
In December 2010, the OCR launched several investigations into whether schools in the Rapid City area treated Native American and white students differently in matters of discipline and access to special and advanced learning programs.
The investigation found evidence that Native American students were being disciplined more frequently and more harshly than white students and were discriminated against when it came to accessing advanced learning courses.
The school district has resolved to produce corrective plans, including hiring a “discipline equity supervisor” and advanced learning coordinator and allowing Native American community members a role in revising policies.
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This 1865 photograph shows French missionary Eugene Casimir Chirouse, left, and an unidentified priest standing with students at the Tulalip Mission School, Tulalip, Washington.
New report details sexual abuse of Indigenous students in Catholic boarding schools
The Washington Post this week published the results of an investigation into the sexual abuse of Native American children in Catholic-run boarding schools in the Midwest, Pacific Northwest and Alaska.
The investigation revealed that at least 122 priests, nuns and brothers assigned to 22 boarding schools were later accused of sexually abusing more than 1,000 children in their care; most of these cases occurred in the 1950s and 1960s.
In May 2022, Interior Secretary Deb Haaland and Assistant Secretary for Indian Affairs Bryan Newland released the first volume of an investigation into the federal Indian boarding school system designed to assimilate Native children and ultimately take their land.
The initial report found that between 1819 and 1969, the federal Indian boarding school operated 408 federal schools across 37 states and territories.
A highly anticipated second volume was expected to be published in January but has not yet been released. Heidi Todacheene, a senior adviser to Haaland, told New Mexico lawmakers in December that the upcoming report would update the first volume to include names and tribal affiliations of individual students.
In July 2022, Pope Francis traveled to Alberta, Canada, where he apologized for the Catholic Church's role in Canada’s Indigenous residential schools and acknowledged the damaging impact on First Nations’ families and communities.
In a statement following that visit, the National Native American Boarding School Healing Coalition suggested he turn his attention next to the church’s role in the U.S. Indian boarding school system.
A lithograph showing the mass execution of 38 Dakota men in Mankato, Minnesota, Dec. 26, 1862. Painted by W. H. Childs, it appeared in Frank Leslie's Illustrated Newspaper on Jan. 24, 1863.
‘Mankato hanging hope’ to be repatriated to Minnesota tribe
The Minnesota Historical Society has agreed to repatriate the "Mankato Hanging Rope" to the Prairie Island Indian Community, who filed a claim under the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act.
A Minnesota infantry soldier donated the rope to the society in 1869, saying that it had been used to execute Dakota ancestor Wicanhpi Wastedanpi (also known as Chaska).
He was one of 303 Dakota men convicted and sentenced to death by a military commission for their roles in the 1862 Dakota War. By law, President Abraham Lincoln was required to review the convictions, and he commuted the sentences of all but 39 men.
One man received a last-minute reprieve, and on December 26, 1862, the remaining 38 men were led to a scaffold in the town of Mankato and hanged in what was the largest mass execution in U.S. history.
It was later learned Wicanhpi Wastedanpi was one of two men hanged by mistake.
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