Harvard University Museum apologizes for 80-Year-Old practices against Native Americans

CAIRO – 13 November 2022: The Harvard University Museum apologized for "complicity" against indigenous peoples and will return hair clips of nearly 700 Native American children forced to attend US boarding schools in the 1930s.

"The Peabody Museum apologizes to Aboriginal families for our complicity in the rights of Aboriginal peoples, and for possessing hair clippings from their relatives for more than 80 years," the museum said in a statement.

Native American children were renamed, told not to use indigenous languages, and had their hair cut at more than 400 boarding schools in the United States in the 19th and 20th centuries, according to the Department of the Interior.

According to CNN, the department issued a long-awaited review of past efforts by the federal government to assimilate Native American children into the white American community by separating them from their families and stripping them of their languages and cultures.

Secretary of the Interior Deb Haaland discussed the findings of an investigation into the conditions in which Native American children suffered from boarding schools between 1819 and 1969. The Department of the Interior said Native American children were forced to assimilate into 408 federal boarding schools.

The museum said it recognized the cultural and spiritual importance hair held to many Native American communities and was "fully committed" to returning the hair clippings to tribal communities and families.