WASHINGTON – Oklahoma has been home to 76 Indian boarding schools, more than any other state in the nation. That history is now at the center of a new bipartisan push in Washington to uncover decades of hidden tribal history, history that has been long withheld by religious institutions and the federal government.
The legislation, titled the “Truth and Healing Commission on Indian Boarding School Policies Act of 2026” (H.R. 7325), has been reintroduced to the U.S. House of Representatives. Rep. Tom Cole (R-OK) and Rep. Sharice Davids (D-KS) are the two main sponsors of the legislation. According to Cole, the bill aims to form an official commission to investigate past federal actions that forcibly enrolled nearly “86 percent” of Indigenous school-age children into the boarding school system.
“For years, Indian boarding schools forcibly removed Native children from their families, stripped them of their heritage, and, in many cases, took their lives,” Cole said. “Yet, for far too long, little has been known about these Indian boarding schools, and these stories have been kept in the shadows. This silence cannot go on. We must bring light to this dark chapter in our nation’s history.”
Davids, whose grandparents survived the boarding school system, emphasized that the trauma is not a piece of the past, but a living force in tribal communities.
“I would not be here without the resilience of my ancestors and those who came before me – including my grandparents, who survived federal Indian boarding schools,” Davids said. “Their experiences are not distant history; they shape our families and communities today. Establishing a Truth and Healing Commission would bring survivors, experts, federal partners, and tribal leaders together to fully understand what happened to our relatives and to take meaningful steps toward a more honest and hopeful future.”
Why Previous Efforts Stalled
While this 2026 push is picking up momentum, it follows years of legislative difficulties, primarily centered on the investigative ability to gather evidence. Previous iterations of the bill, such as H.R. 5444, faced opposition over the inclusion of subpoena power. Opponents in the past have argued that granting such authority made the commission adversarial rather than healing.
At this point, researchers have located fewer than 40 percent of boarding school records from the hundreds of federal, state, and religious institutions.
In Oklahoma, many boarding schools were run by religious organizations through federal funding, and thousands of pages of student rosters and health reports remain behind the closed doors of private entities that are not subject to standard federal Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests.
Advocates such as the National Native American Boarding School Healing Coalition (NABS) insist that without this legislation, the truth remains trapped in church and private archives. NABS took to social media to release a statement in support of the bill.
“This critical legislation acknowledges the devastating legacy of the federal Indian boarding school era and charts a path toward truth, justice, and healing for Native peoples and all Americans. For more than a century, government-funded and church-run boarding schools sought to erase Indigenous identities, languages, and cultures-leaving generational trauma that continues to this day,” the NABS wrote.
Principal Chief Chuck Hoskin Jr. of the Cherokee Nation has been a consistent supporter of federal transparency, recently linking the need for historical honesty to the defense of tribal sovereignty.
“In the Cherokee Nation, our advocacy for our citizens has always been about restoration, accountability, and looking out for one another as Cherokees,” Hoskin said.
Subpoena Power and Burial Sites
The proposed commission would have a six-year timeline to locate and identify marked and unmarked burial sites. In Oklahoma, at least 50 burial sites have already been identified, with many more expected as research continues. The commission would be given subpoena power under the new bill, which was specifically designed to overcome the legislative blockades that have prevented tribal citizens from identifying where their family members were buried.
H.R. 7325 was referred this month to the House Committee of Education and the Workforce, along with the Committee on Natural Resources. The legislation calls for a possible $90 million in funding to hold convenings across all 12 Bureau of Indian Affairs regions. The funding is meant to guarantee researchers have the resources to gain access to the estimated 100 million pages of documents that have yet to be uncovered.
The Living Legacy in Oklahoma
Two boarding schools, Riverside Indian School in Anadarko, OK and Sequoyah High School in Tahlequah, OK, continue to operate in Oklahoma today, tracing their roots back to the 19th-century federal system. Today, these schools emphasize self-determination and cultural preservation; they are the remaining links to an era with such hidden history.
In Oklahoma, where the boarding school system was the most prevalent, the proposed commission aims to obtain all records surrounding these educational institutions. The legislation looks to provide a formal record on the impact these schools had on tribal nations, as well as to their citizens. The bill is currently pending approval from the Committee of Education and the Workforce, and the Committee of Natural Resources; it has not yet been scheduled for a vote on the House floor.
