Throughout the nation, for over 150 years, some of America’s finest universities have been instilling education, facilitating research, and providing direct services to their communities, all on lands that were stolen from Native tribes and peoples. Now, universities are beginning to recognize their land’s original inhabitants, acknowledge the truth of their histories, and explore ways in which reparations with Native people can be made. In a new project toward truth and reconciliation, First Nations is working with leaders at The Ohio State University to examine the dispossession of tribal lands at this land-grant university and the effects it has had on the economic, educational, and health disparities of Ohio’s Native peoples.
History of Land Grant Institutions
The work is part of Ohio State’s “Stepping Out and Stepping Up Racial Justice” project, funded in part by the university’s Seed Fund for Racial Justice. The project seeks to address the “original sin” of the nation’s first public universities, how schools like The Ohio State University came to be, and how the stealing of these lands has continued to marginalize Native people.
Understanding Harm to Native Communities
Recognizing the violence and atrocities behind the land seizure of the nations’ land-grant universities is the first step to righting this historic and ongoing wrong. According to Dr. Gavazzi, this involves contrition – a call for remorse and apology. Schools like Colorado State University and University of Minnesota have taken this step with official acknowledgements of tribes affected by the land seizures that led to their founding. Schools like South Dakota State University have taken a second step: In addition to acknowledging the truth, they are moving toward reconciliation and compensation to their lands’ original inhabitants. The university’s Wokini Initiative is designed to give back to the Native American people living in the state the total estimated $600,000 annual income gleaned from the 160,000 acres originally given to the university, in the form of scholarships and programs aimed to support tribal members.
Stepping Out & Stepping Up
Through the project, fully titled “Stepping Out & Stepping Up: Toward Truth & Reconciliation with Dispossessed Native American Tribes,” First Nations will leverage the organization’s connections with tribes across the country who were removed from Ohio or whose land was granted to Ohio State to facilitate a new dialogue between Native peoples and the representatives of the university. This will lead to an initial understanding of what specific reparative actions would most benefit the Native American communities impacted by this land dispossession and the process by which it could be jointly designed.
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