Michigan’s $1.25M Tribal Boarding School Report Remains Unreleased

(Source: MIRS.news, Published 02/26/2026) A dispute over a state-funded study of Michigan's Native American boarding schools escalated Thursday as lawmakers heard sharply conflicting accounts about why a 300-plus-page report has not been made public.

At the center of the conflict is a $1.25 million legislative appropriation for an exploratory study into Michigan's boarding school history—research intended to document the institutions, the harm inflicted on Native American children and the state's role in the system.

The consulting firm hired to do the study, Kauffman & Associates, says its full findings were sidelined after state officials sought significant changes. The Michigan Department of Civil Rights (MDRC), which oversaw the contract, has declined to release the completed report.

During the House Appropriations General Government Subcommittee hearing, Jo Ann Kauffman, founder of Kauffman & Associates, testified that her firm fulfilled its contract and submitted a final version of the report in September 2025. She told lawmakers that her team identified more than 30 boarding school and related institutional sites in Michigan, far exceeding the handful previously acknowledged in federal reports.

She said researchers documented accounts of forced attendance, physical and sexual abuse, identity erasure and long-term intergenerational trauma described by survivors and descendants. However, the project's direction shifted, she said, after representatives from Attorney General Dana Nessel's office became involved late in the contract period.

According to Kauffman, her firm was asked to narrow the scope of its analysis, limit references to state and county entities, remove discussion of out-of-state placements and reduce the number of schools analyzed from 34 to five federal institutions. She testified that those directives conflicted with the study’s original framework and with commitments made to tribal participants.

The Attorney General also declined to attend, chair Tom Kuhn (R-Troy) said. He noted she has declined to attend hearings on work projects, as well.

Kauffman added that her firm declined to provide unredacted consent forms for study participants, arguing that doing so would violate confidentiality agreements and tribal data governance principles.

Rep. Will Snyder (D-Muskegon) questioned whether the firm had authority to withhold those documents and asked about sourcing standards used in the report. The dispute follows earlier reporting that Michigan spent $1.1 million over three years on the study but has not publicly released the full report.

MDCR previously characterized the consultant’s work as insufficient, while Kauffman & Associates has accused the state of attempting to sanitize or significantly shorten the findings, Bridge reported.

Tribal leaders who testified Wednesday offered varied perspectives, with some defending the research effort and urging the full report be made public, others raising concerns about consent procedures and how testimony was used.

Sandra Witherspoon, chair of the Grand Traverse Band of Ottawa and Chippewa Indians, told lawmakers the boarding school system was not voluntary but a “coerced stripping of humanity,” designed to sever Native children from their language, spirituality and families. She urged the committee not to treat the issue as a closed chapter of history.

She said the forced removal of Native children and the systematic suppression of culture “meets the international standards for genocide,” specifically referencing the forcible transfer of children from one group to another. Witherspoon also argued that the unpaid labor imposed on children in some of the institutions meets the legal definition of human trafficking and peonage.

She called for continued research, accountability and survivor-centered support.

Rodney Loonsfoot, a Keweenaw Bay Indian Community council member who identified himself as a boarding school survivor, acknowledged the qualifications of the research team and defended the effort given its limitations.

He told lawmakers Kauffman & Associates assembled “an outstanding professional scholarly team” that included Indigenous researchers and said compressing generations of trauma into a short report with limited access to records was inherently difficult.

He urged lawmakers to continue the work with additional funding and consultation, framing the draft as incomplete rather than invalid.

“What I share today is not abstract history, it's a lived experience, inherited trauma and unfinished responsibilities,” Loonsfoot said. “The question before you is what happened at Native American boarding schools in Michigan? It's not simple. It's layered, painful, and right now incomplete.”

Winnay Wemigwase, chairperson of the Little Traverse Bay Bands of Odawa Indians, testified that she initially approached the study cautiously but agreed to participate after the interviews were held at her tribal government building and facilitated by individuals she knew and trusted.

She said the consent process was explained and appeared proper at the time, and she ultimately shared deeply personal experiences in a nearly two-hour recorded interview.

“I shared things that I haven't talked to my family about because it's so painful,” she told lawmakers, describing the experience as deeply personal. “And then there was about 40 seconds that was pulled out of that for effect.”

Wemigwase later objected after discovering excerpts of her testimony, including references to sexual abuse, were included in a video trailer shown at a tribal consultation meeting without her prior review. She said she withdrew her consent for the video’s use, arguing she had not been shown the edited footage in advance and that trauma-informed research requires ongoing consent, particularly when recorded interviews are repurposed or publicly displayed.

Wemigwase also criticized what she described as a “sensationalized” presentation of certain quotes in the written report and raised concerns that the Saginaw Chippewa Tribe’s decision not to participate left major gaps in the analysis, particularly regarding the Mount Pleasant Indian Industrial Boarding School.

Despite disagreements over how the report was handled, lawmakers repeatedly thanked survivors and tribal leaders who came forward to testify before the committee adjourned abruptly due to session.