Connecting the Dots:
Proposed changes to the educational system will affect everyone, but it can be difficult to see how it will impact Native students specifically. While many communities will lose schools, Native communities will lose so much more if TCUS are shuttered.
That is because TCUS are more than schools, they are lifelines. They provide affordable, culturally relevant education, serve as community hubs, cultural preservation centers, daycare providers, and job creators. As a result, losing access to a TCU means more than losing access to education, but also means losing a vital source of daily community support and employment, and even losing your two-thousand-year-old language.
Education is a treaty right. In most tribal treaties with the United States government, support for educational programs on Indian land is guaranteed. Removing funding from TCUs is not just a bad move, it is a morally reprehensible reversal of promises made – in some cases hundreds of years ago.
