Students and Staff at the Native Center on campus hosted their fourth annual “Orange Shirt Day.”

     The orange shirts are worn to both pay homage and bring attention to the atrocities caried out in boarding schools across the nation.

    The passing of the “Compulsory Attendance Law” in the year of 1891 gave parents of first nation children no choice in the attendance of these schools. Parents who refused to send their children away to these vile places would more often than not face retribution in the forms of decreased rations, jail time or having their children stripped away by state police.

   By 1926, it was reported that as many as sixty thousand children were forced into these church sponsored assimilation schools. Many who attended these schools reported finding themselves the victims of sexual violence at the hands of the priests and nuns who staffed them.

    A recent study done by The Washington Post showed that as many as 3,100 children died while placed in the care of these facilities, many of whom were placed in unmarked graves and reported as runaways to local law enforcement agencies.

     The stain left by boarding schools on the Native American people and their culture are still felt today, many languages were lost during this dark time in Western history. It was the common practice of nuns and priests to beat the children whenever they were caught speaking in their native tongues.

     It was not until the passing of the “Indian Child Welfare Act’ of 1973 that Native parents were finally afforded the right to refuse their children’s placement into these schools.