Politicos released a 10-year Native language revitalization plan to help reverse the loss of Native languages in the Lower 48 states, Alaska and Hawai’i on Dec. 9 during the 2024 White House Tribal Nations Summit.
The plan is part of President Joe Biden’s work to confront the systematic and deliberate campaign by the government to forcibly assimilate Indigenous peoples and eradicate Native languages and cultures. That campaign was documented by Interior Secretary Deb Haaland’s Federal Indian Boarding School Initiative, and formally acknowledged by Biden in his official apology to Native communities in October.
Haaland held lengthy hearings nationwide, including at the Alaska Native Heritage Center in Anchorage, to hear directly from Native Americans who were forced to attend and were subject to long-term abuse at these boarding schools.
“Indigenous languages are central to our cultures, our life ways, and who we are as people,” Haaland said. “They connect us to our ancestors, to our homelands, and to our place in the world. This ambitious plan represents the Biden-Harris administration’s commitment to address the wrongs of the past and restore what has been taken from us.”
The plan addresses under-investment in Native language revitalization to date.
The Bureau of Indian Education (BIE) funds 187 schools for American Indian and Alaska Native students and is tasked with providing Indigenous students with a culturally relevant and high-quality education by way of a $16.7 billion investment for Native language revitalization programs for federally recognized Tribes and the Native Hawaiian Community.
The plan calls for expanding access to immersion language environments, bolstering community-led revitalization efforts, and developing, growing and sustaining Native language support networks.
The Interior Department also announced a cooperative agreement with the National Fund for Excellence in American Indian Education. This partnership will provide $7.5 million in existing grant funding to Bureau of Indian Education schools supporting the launch or expansion of immersion programs, as well as create a network of educators and school leaders committed to Native language revitalization. This funding will help build a network of BIE schools committed to integrating Native language immersion and cultural education into their curricula, offering students the tools to connect with their language and heritage.
The Biden administration also announced on Dec. 9 plans to hold tribal consultations around its consideration of legislative proposals to address the balance of jurisdiction in Indian country that was upended by the Supreme Court’s 2022 decision in Oklahoma v. Castro-Huerta.
Until two years ago, there was an understanding, shared by the federal government and Tribes, that a law passed by Congress – the General Crimes Act – limited a state’s authority to prosecute some crimes committed in Indian country, namely those crimes committed by non-Native defendants against Native victims. Those crimes could be prosecuted only by federal or tribal authorities, until in Castro-Huerta the Supreme Court rejected that understanding.
Instead, the Supreme Court ruled that the General Crimes Act does not limit a state’s inherent jurisdiction to prosecute non-Native defendants who commit crimes against Native victims in Indian country. Based on the court’s decision, the federal government, sates and Tribes now have concurrent jurisdiction to prosecute such crimes throughout the United States.
