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The U.S. Department of the Interior (DOI) today released its second — and final — report following a three-year investigation into the “traumatic and violent” legacy of Indian Boarding Schools that the U.S. government operated for a century and a half.  The U.S. Department of the Interior (DOI) today released its second — and final — report following a three-year investigation into the “traumatic and violent” legacy of Indian Boarding Schools that the U.S. government operated for a century and a half. The 105-page report, penned by Assistant Secretary of Indian Affairs Bryan Newland (Bay Mills Indian Community), builds on the first volume of the Interior’s Federal Indian Boarding School Initiative Investigative Report, published May 11, 2022. The initial report detailed for the first time an official list of Federal Indian boarding schools across to the United States, explained the policy justification the government used to establish those institutions, and detailed institutional conditions and the intergenerational impacts schools had on Indigenous People. Today’s second volume of the investigation adds to previously-reported figures to paint an increasingly clearer picture of the Indian boarding school system: Between 1871 and 1969, the federal government paid more than $23.3 billion in inflation-adjusted dollars to fund the federal Indian boarding school system as well as other similar institutions. Of the 417 boarding schools across 37 states identified in the investigation, about half were run by a religious institution, and most “used the manual labor of American Indian, Alaska Native, and Native Hawaiian children to compensate for the poor conditions of school facilities and lack of financial support from the U.S. Government.” At those schools, the investigation identified at least 18,624 students entered the system, and at least 973 students died while at school. The investigation also found that at least 74 school burial sites were associated with these institutions, though DOI expects that the number of students, student deaths, burial sites, and funds spent on the schools to be “far greater." The DOI also identified more than 1,000 federal and non-federal institutions that didn’t fall under its definition of “federal Indian boarding school” but advanced the policy of assimilation. Those institutions — including Indian day schools, sanitariums, asylums, orphanages, and stand-alone dormitories — worked similarly to assimilate Native youth into white society. “Make no mistake, this was a concerted attempt to eradicate 'the Indian problem,' — to either assimilate or destroy Native peoples altogether,” Interior Secretary Deb Haaland (Laguna Pueblo) said in a press briefing on Tuesday. “Thankfully, the federal government failed. It failed to annihilate our languages, our traditions, our life ways. It failed to destroy us, because we are still here." During the press briefing, Haaland said she expects President Biden will read the investigative report, and believes that the Department of the Interior “will have conversations with the White House moving forward.” The Federal Indian Boarding School Initiative was launched by Interior Secretary Deb Haaland (Laguna Pueblo) in June 2021, with the goals of identifying boarding school locations, burial sites, and the names and tribal affiliations of children interred at each location. The same month, Haaland announced the Road to Healing tour, a yearlong commitment to travel across Indian Country to collect oral histories from boarding school survivors and their descendants—a task that concluded in November 2023, and took her and her staff to 12 communities. Much of that testimony was incorporated into Newland’s most recent report, where he drew themes from survivors’ testimonies, including the weaponization of food, the generational impacts across families, and the loss of language and culture leading to a spiritual wounding. “One of the most prominent shared experiences of survivors across the country was the grief and trauma that resulted from Native languages loss from the Federal Indian boarding school system,” the report reads. “The punishments for speaking Native languages instead of English, even when children could not understand or speak English, commonly involved their mouths being washed with lye soap or varying types of corporal punishment that ranged in severity.” According to the DOI, the federal Indian boarding school investigations “lay the groundwork for the continued work of the Interior Department to address the intergenerational trauma created by historical federal Indian boarding school policies.” To complete the full investigation, DOI staff and contractors reviewed approximately 103 million pages of U.S. Government records. In his final report, Newland made eight recommendations for steps forward, including: for the U.S. government to formally apologize for the legacy of Indian boarding schools; federal investment in the present-day harms caused by boarding schools; the erection of a national monument to commemorate boarding school survivors, and those who lost their lives; to identify and repatriate children who never came home from boarding school; and for the government to strengthen international relationships with nations who have similar histories with their Indigenous Peoples. In his opening letter to Haaland, Newland acknowledges that Indian Country has seen a change in America’s understanding of Indian Boarding schools in the last three years. “Survivors and leaders have begun efforts to explain the legacy and impacts of Indian boarding schools on local communities across Indian country,” he wrote. “Universities and other institutions have begun their own actions to redress for [sic] their role in the Federal Indian boarding school system. Popular books, television shows, and films have discussed these institutions, and humanized this history for wide audiences. Courts and members of Congress have engaged in a dialogue on the policies and laws advanced by this system.” Newland wrote that he hopes the report does not mark the end of the U.S. Government’s work to acknowledge, understand, and heal from the impacts of these boarding schools. “Instead, our shared work should mark the beginning of a long effort to heal our nation – after all, these schools were used to pursue a policy of forced assimilation over a century and a half,” he wrote. “Our work has occurred over just three years.”
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Scientists are finding that even moderate drinking may be more harmful than we thought—and certain groups are more at risk.  Humans have been drinking alcohol for thousands of years—it’s part of our culture to raise a toast in celebration with friends or nurse a glass of wine or beer at the end of a long day.
But what is all that booze doing to our bodies? Scientists are increasingly finding that even moderate drinking may be more harmful than we thought. Alcohol is a group-1 carcinogen, linked to cancers of the mouth, pharynx, larynx, esophagus, liver, colorectum, and breast. In 2023, the World Health Organization declared there is no safe amount of alcohol to consume—adding that there’s no evidence that the potential cardiovascular benefits of a glass of red wine outweigh its cancer risks. Certain people are at greater risk too. Here’s just some of what National Geographic’s reporters have learned in recent years about how alcohol affects your body—and what you can do about it. 1. The effects of alcohol are way worse for women “Even when consuming the same amount of alcohol as men, women are more susceptible to its negative effects,” wrote Meryl Davids Landau in an August 2023 story. Alcohol-related deaths are climbing in women, and lifetime risk of breast cancer rises as much as 9 percent with just one daily drink. Booze can also affect fertility and menopause. Experts told Landau that this is partly because women have more fatty tissue and less body water than men of similar weight, which leads to higher blood-alcohol concentration. “Women also have fewer enzymes that metabolize alcohol,” she wrote. “And their hormonal fluctuations are thought to play a role in how quickly alcohol breaks down.” Women also may not realize how much they’re drinking. What’s the best rule of thumb? Read the full story here. 2. It really does get harder to drink as you age It’s not just women whose bodies have a harder time dealing with alcohol—as we get older, everyone becomes more vulnerable. Like women, all of our bodies have less body water as we age. “If you drink the same amount at 80 as you did at 30, your blood alcohol level will be much higher,” said Alison Moore, director of the Stein Institute for Research on Aging and the UC San Diego Center for Healthy Aging, in Stacey Colino’s July 2024 story on aging and alcohol intolerance. Additionally, enzymes that help our bodies metabolize alcohol diminish with age. And the aging brain is also more vulnerable to the effects of alcohol, which can affect coordination and balance—resulting in a higher risk of falls and impaired reaction time. What are the consequences of these changes to your body? Read the full story here. 3. Those changes may be more sudden than you think Have you ever woken up with a hangover and suddenly really felt your age? That’s for good reason. Researchers have found that our bodies actually age in two “bursts” at 44 and 60, as Daryl Austin reported in September 2024. Those molecular changes can account for some of the sudden visible changes to our bodies such as sagging skin and wrinkles. It can also account for our worsening hangovers. At age 44, some of the molecular changes that scientists observed occurred in cells affecting our ability to metabolize alcohol. Is there anything you can do to mitigate these effects? Read the full story here. 4. Drinking before bedtime is particularly bad for you It’s no surprise that a night of hard drinking can mess with your sleep. But scientists are discovering that even just a nightcap can cause problems, as Tara Haelle reported in a June 2023 story. "Sleep is designed to give you sort of a cardiac holiday—your heart rate drops, your blood pressure drops, etc.," said Ian Colrain, president and CEO of MRI Global, a research institute based in Kansas City, Missouri. But alcohol elevates your heart rate—and Colrain’s research has found that even a little bit of alcohol can keep your heart rate elevated for four hours of sleep. Drinking before bedtime can also fragment your REM sleep, and boost your risk for sleep apnea and alcohol addiction. Read the full story here. 5. Drinking on a plane might be even worse It might be even worse to have a nightcap when you’re on a long-haul flight. As Leah Worthington reported in July 2024, new research has found that alcohol “compounds the effects of high altitude on people’s bodies, putting an extra burden on the cardiovascular system, reducing blood oxygen levels, compounding dehydration, and impairing sleep quality.” Although young and healthy people may be able to tolerate some amount of hypoxemia, or reduced oxygen in the lungs and bloodstream, there can be serious consequences for older people or those with heart or lung disease. Read the full story here. 6. This is why you wake up anxious after drinking Even young and healthy people may not escape one effect that alcohol has on the body: hangxiety. Yes, if you’ve ever woken up after an evening of drinking feeling nervous or uneasy, science suggests that the booze you consumed really is the culprit. As Meryl Davids Landau reported in March 2024, alcohol interferes with certain neurotransmitters in the body that keep your anxiety in check. Even when the alcohol is out of your system, its toxic byproduct acetaldehyde can continue to wreak havoc. “Throughout the day, as the acetaldehyde is excreted, your body is recovering from having been poisoned,” said Stephen Holt, director of the Yale-New Haven Hospital’s addiction recovery clinic. This can cause symptoms like nausea and fatigue—which in turn can make you feel more anxious. Do hangover cures help? Read the full story here. 7. The effects of alcohol can be reversed—within weeks Acetaldehyde also builds up in the cells of your liver. How long they do so can determine how much damage your liver sustains. But the good news is that these effects can be reversed in just weeks—suggesting that Dry January is more than just a buzzy health trend, as Rachel Fairbanks reported in October 2023. “The liver has an enormous regenerative capacity,” says Paul Thomes, a researcher at Auburn University, whose work focuses on the mechanism of alcohol-induced organ damage. Of the four stages of alcohol-related liver disease, the first three can be reversed simply by not drinking. There are also other benefits from abstaining from alcohol for a month. Read the full story here. 8. Want to take a break? These tips could help As we learn more about the health harms of alcohol, new alternatives are emerging. Mocktails and other nonalcoholic are gaining popularity—and even tasting better thanks to new developments in food science. As we previously reported, studies show that these drinks really do help people cut back on booze and mitigate its harmful health effects. Sober travel is also on the rise, as we reported in April 2023, making it possible for everyone to explore new cultures. (Even those cultures where a glass of wine or beer or a shot of something bitter is typically considered part of the journey.) Many tour companies are even offering booze-free excursions. “People are just so happy to connect with others who have gone through a similar life experience,” Lauren Burnison, founder of We Love Lucid, a European sober tour company, told us. “There’s such an upbeat vibe, and it’s great to wake up without a hangover.” Unfortunately, there are some states that remain uninterested in military spouse rules for attorneys  After graduating from Northeastern University School of Law in Boston in 2014, Nicolle Vasquez Del Favero moved to Hawaii for a coveted postgrad fellowship with Skadden Arps Slate Meagher & Flom LLP.
"I ended up working at the Domestic Violence Action Center in Hawaii," she told Law360 Pulse in a recent interview. "I had quite a bit of courtroom experience after two years." After finishing up the two-year fellowship, she followed her husband — an active-duty Marine at the time — to where he was stationed in Norfolk, Virginia. Little did she know how difficult it would be to jump-start her own career in Virginia as a Hawaii-licensed attorney. "Rather than really focusing on what my next career step would be, I had to take a step back to follow my husband to Norfolk, because we'd been long distance for five years. It was make or break in our relationship, and I chose love. But when I got to Norfolk, it was incredibly hard to find a legal job." Although Virginia has a military spouse provisional admissions licensure for attorneys, Vasquez Del Favero said it is one of the worst in the country due to a requirement that any military spouse attorney who needs to make a courtroom appearance be supervised by their local council for the duration of their time in the state — meaning she would have had to be chaperoned every time she went to court." No one is going to hire any military spouse attorney with that provision, because it equates us to essentially a third-year law student without a bar, which is incredibly offensive," said Vasquez Del Favero, now a mother of two young children. "After two years of heavy courtroom experience, I decided to take a paralegal job just to get my feet wet and start networking." She currently works as an assistant counsel for the Naval Facilities Engineering Systems Command, a federal position that does not require her to have a Virginia license. "My story is not unique," Vasquez Del Favero said. "Military spouse attorneys face many barriers. I was underemployed for about a year and a half until I got into the federal government as an attorney." Catalysts for Change Vasquez Del Favero is a former state licensing director for the Military Spouse JD Network, a 1,000-member bar association created to help military spouses — of whom 92% are estimated to be women — with the unique professional challenges that other attorneys do not face. She and other MSJDN members who sat on The Standing Committee on Legal Assistance for Military Personnel were the catalysts to a resolution passed earlier in August by the American Bar Association's policymaking body. The resolution urged all state supreme courts and bar associations to accommodate the unique needs of military spouse attorneys who must move frequently to support the nation's defense. Samantha Arrington Sliney is the MSJDN's current state licensing director, attorney adviser with the U.S. Department of the Army and an Air National Guard judge advocate general. She is also a military spouse and mother of three. Sliney told Law360 Pulse she first brought up the attorney licensure issue in summer 2023 shortly after joining the ABA committee. She noted that in 2022, a change was made to the Servicemembers Civil Relief Act that provided assistance for military spouses such as licensing portability, but it expressly excluded attorneys from its provisions. In addition, a resolution passed by the ABA in 2012 that was supposed to have addressed military spouse attorney licensure issues has not done enough, Sliney said. Although the majority of states have since adopted some form of military spouse attorney licensure reciprocity, the requirements vary greatly from state to state. "Kudos to the ABA for doing something 12 years ago, but there was really no tracking or follow through on whether or not that had been successful in its intent, which was to make employability of military spouses as they follow their service member around the world easier, and in some instances, it has made it harder," Sliney said. Attorneys who are spouses of active-duty military personnel often have difficulty obtaining licensure to practice law in the jurisdictions to which their military spouses are assigned. The ABA's new policy makes specific recommendations to bar admission authorities to significantly improve attorney license portability for attorney spouses of active-duty military members. For instance, it asks that courts and bar associations adopt military spouse reciprocity requirements that require no more supervision requirements than those for attorneys admitted to that jurisdiction through normal admission processes. "The states are kind of doing their own thing, so to speak," Sliney said. "They're all taking their individual flavor on it, which is basically making it harder for military spouses, because every time we move, we're having to relearn what a specific state does or does not want us to do." Onerous State Rules The biggest things the ABA committee identified as issues for attorneys married to service members were very onerous supervision requirements in certain states. Sliney said Virginia's supervision rule requiring military spouse attorneys to be escorted to every court hearing is particularly problematic. "You're never going to get hired in private practice," she said. "That's costing the firm too much money, and too many resources, so at the end of the day, you're not getting after the overall problem, which is economic instability and financial insecurity of the family." Florida has much more reasonable supervision requirements, Sliney said. "Florida has a pretty decent rule," Sliney said. "Florida doesn't require you to be escorted to every court hearing, but you are required to have a Florida attorney that's like a mentor. They are a state that we like to use as an example that has chosen to have a supervision requirement, but it is a very reasonable supervision requirement." Meanwhile, New York does not have a military spouse reciprocity or temporary licensing provision, but the New York Bar is of the opinion that it has the ability to accommodate military spouses, she said. "New York doesn't actually have a rule in writing, so we've been working with them," Sliney said. "We are encouraging them to get a rule on the books for military spouse attorneys." Meanwhile, some states have rules in writing, but they are completely performative, she said. "You have a rule on the books, and you can say you're military-friendly, but in reality, you're not," Sliney said. "Because even if spouses can get licensed, they can't practice because no one will hire them. It might be easier, like in the government sector or in-house, where you're maybe not going to court proceedings, but in any litigation-type job, you're not going to pay two attorneys to do the work of one." Sliney said another problem is that certain states have a lengthy process for attorney licensure for military spouses. "Some states don't allow you to apply until you're physically located in the state," she said. "So I get to the state, and I apply, and then it takes 18 months processing from the date I get my application submitted. Well, I'm now pretty close to two years into a three-year assignment, and I'm getting ready to [move] again. This rule is performative in nature. It really has done us no good, because by the time hopefully I get approved for a license, I've still got to find a job, and I'm not going to have time to find a job and actually work when I'm [moving] in six months." Sliney said state bars generally mean well, but many people who haven't lived the military lifestyle don't understand. "Sometimes military families will get orders six months in advance," she said. "They know they're coming to your state. If you allow the spouse to apply when they get those orders, there's a potential that they could already be licensed by the time they get there, and then they could go ahead and get a job, therefore increasing the financial stability of the military family." Unfortunately, there are some states that remain uninterested in military spouse rules for attorneys, she said. "Keesler Air Force Base has a very large military population located in Mississippi, and we have spent countless hours working with local legal leadership in Mississippi, along with the state bar, trying to convince them to have a rule," Sliney said. "And they have flat-out refused." Sliney said she believes Mississippi is coming from a place of protectionism against what it perceives to be transient attorneys messing up how things are done there. "They are very insular to that state, and very focused on attorneys that either went to Mississippi law schools or sat for the Mississippi bar exam," she said. "So that's probably the most extreme example we've seen." Beverly Kraft, spokesperson for the Mississippi Administrative Office of Courts, referred questions about military spouse attorneys to Adam Kilgore, general counsel for The Mississippi Bar. Kilgore did not immediately return a phone call seeking comment. Application fees also vary by state. Some states waive them completely, while others have a very expensive application process. And requirements differ among the states as well. "Some require you to have been licensed for at least five years. Some require two. It's kind of just all over the board," Sliney said. The updated ABA resolution also asks that courts and bar associations process and complete a military spouse reciprocity application on an expedited and priority basis — within 90 days from the date of an application's submission. A military spouse should also be allowed to provide a copy of the service member's military orders or a letter from the service member's commanding officer indicating an upcoming permanent change of station to the relevant jurisdiction in order to submit a military spouse reciprocity application, according to the new policy. In addition, it urges courts and bar associations to waive the jurisdiction's application fees for all applicants seeking admission under the military spouse reciprocity rule. Sliney hopes that the unanimous passage of the ABA's updated resolution will help provide some consistency in military spouse attorney rules. "While it's not binding on the states, it gives us the ability to go back to states like Mississippi and say, 'Hey, your delegates supported this. They said this was a good thing. Why do you not have a rule?' It's not binding, but the ABA is very well-respected in the United States as a very persuasive authority when it comes to best practices in the legal field," Sliney added. |
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