Dear Loyola: Do More Than Land Acknowledgements

President Joe Biden visited Arizona Oct. 25 to formally apologize to Native Americans for the decades of government-run boarding school systems that forcibly removed Indigenous children from their families in order to assimilate them into white society. 

The apology was historic, primarily because it was the first time the U.S. government has acknowledged their role in the displacement, persecution, death and subsequent multi-generational trauma caused by the abusive boarding school system. 

But frankly, it was long overdue. 

Although it was a nice sentiment, it does little to reconcile the damage done during the 150 years the schools were open — up until 1969. An Interior Department investigation that called for an apology found out of around 18,000 Native American children removed from their homes, at least 973 died, The Associated Press reported.  

Because of this — and because of the blatant political undertones of the apology, which was given to a left-leaning, low-turnout voter population in a swing state just weeks before yesterday’s election — the motivations reek of virtue signaling, causing many Native Americans to implore the President to follow up his words with concrete, political action. 

These calls for action are more than understandable, considering Native Americans still face disparities in employment, income and education, according to the Joint Economic Committee. Additionally, only 16.8% of Native Americans and Alaskan Natives aged 25 or older had earned a bachelor’s degree as of 2022, according to U.S. Census data. 

It’s because of this the U.S. government should be doing more than giving overdue, overtly political apologies. 

The government should be fostering opportunity and education for and about those in Indigenous communities, and academic institutions — like Loyola — should be following suit. 

Overall, Loyola does a decent job offering education resources for students to learn about Native American communities. There’s a land acknowledgement statement on every U.S. campus decorated by indigenous artist Buffalo Gouge. 

The university also provides a reading and resource list for Native American Heritage Month on the library’s website, as well as occasional programming with panels of Native American people discussing the “strengths and challenges” of Indigenous communities. 

Loyola even offers some classes which focus on different aspects of Indigenous and Native American culture across the social sciences and humanities. 

While these different strategies toward education and acknowledgement allow Loyola students to engage with Native American cultures in both a historic and contemporary context, this doesn’t contribute to fostering communities of Native American students at Loyola and in Chicago. 

Neighboring University of Illinois Chicago and Northwestern University, in addition to providing similar services to those described above, offer a variety of programming and resources with deliberate action plans — a necessary next step beyond acknowledgement, apology and academia. 

In addition to emphasizing “Native American/Indigenous Inclusion and Belonging” in their Office of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion’s website, UIC also offers a wide variety of distinct resources for Indigenous students attending their university and living in Chicago.

These include a “Native American Task Force Report” that chronicles the history of Native American students at the university and recommends plans for actions. The report also includes a comprehensive list of university services for Indigenous students, links to student groups and lists of Native American professional organizations and Chicago-based Native American community organizations. 

Similarly, Northwestern has had a Native American inclusion initiative since 2014, which seeks “to create spaces where Native American and Indigenous people are heard, their identities are honored, and they can be successful members of Northwestern as well as good tribal and community citizens,” according to the initiative’s mission statement. 

The initiatives website also includes links to university staff who specialize in Native American and Indigenous affairs, a link for prospective Native American and Indigenous students and a strategic plan developed by the Native American and Indigenous Strategic Planning Committee.

While Loyola does have some infrastructure to facilitate conversation with Indigenous and Native American communities, a brief search on the websites of neighboring institutions makes apparent how lackluster these frameworks are. 

Loyola — like Biden and the federal government — seems to be focused on acknowledgements and apologies rather than initiatives. 

Only 0.1% of Loyola’s student body identifies as Native American or Alaskan Native, according to Data USA. Considering Loyola’s social justice mission — not to mention, the less-than-stellar history of Jesuit interactions with Native Americans — Loyola should be making more of an effort to create accessible academic spaces for one of the country’s most educationally-barred communities. 

Biden’s apology must be followed by action, and so too must Loyola’s land acknowledgements. 

The nuanced necessity of this is best articulated by Seattle-based Bill Hall, a 71-year-old man from Alaska’s Tingit community who accepted Biden’s apology despite suffering years of abuse in a boarding school. 

“As I was watching, tears began to flow from my eyes,” Hall told the Associated Press. “Yes, I accept his apology. Now, what can we do next?”