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Soon after Donald J. Trump returned to the White House, he issued an executive order that some fear could turn a federal system that aims to educate Indigenous schoolchildren in culturally informed ways back into an assimilationist tool reminiscent of 19th century policies targeting Native Americans.

While much about the implementation of on “Ending Radical Indoctrination in K-12 Schoolingâ€� remains unclear, John Tippeconnic is among those who fear what its mandate to provide a “patriotic educationâ€� might mean for Native American students.Ìý

“Are they going to attack the schools and tell them what curriculum they can teach and what they cannot teach? Will it take away some of the culture and language emphasis in schools?â€� said Tippeconnic, the former director of the Office of Indian Education Programs for the Bureau of Indian Affairs and a retired professor.Ìý

“Are we going back to the days of forced assimilation that we experienced with boarding schools, where language and culture was prohibited?� 

Trump’s order targets all schools across the country, not just those that educate Native Americans, and sets a number of broad goals, including:

• “eliminating Federal funding or support for illegal and discriminatory treatment and indoctrination in K-12 schools, including based on gender ideology and discriminatory equity ideology.â€�
• stopping funding from being used “to directly or indirectly support or subsidize the social transition of a minor student.â€�
• and promoting “patriotic educationâ€� that’s “groundedâ€� in an “accurate, honest, unifying, inspiring, and ennobling characterization of America’s founding and foundational principles.â€� 

The order requires various federal officials – including the Secretary of Education, the Secretary of Defense, the Secretary of Health and Human Services and the Attorney General – to identify ways of “eliminating Federal funding or support for illegal and discriminatory treatment and indoctrination in K-12 schools, including based on gender ideology and discriminatory equity ideology.� 

Their deadline to do so is April 29.Ìý 

In the vast majority of public school districts, federal money accounts for only a fraction – – of the total funding. That gives the federal government a significant but relatively limited ability to enforce such mandates about what can be taught in classrooms.Ìý

But the federal government has far greater control over two schools districts that it funds and operates directly: the Bureau of Indian Education, which serves some 45,000 Native American students in 183 schools in 23 states, and the Department of Defense Education Activity, which educates 67,000 children of military members in 161 schools located around the world.Ìý

As a result, experts say, the effects of Trump’s order on patriotic education could be felt more acutely in these school systems than in others.Ìý

“Education is left to the states, according to the Constitution,� said Cathleen Cahill, a of history at Penn State University. “So that in a non-BIE (and non-DOD) school district, it's the state school board and the state that's going to determine the curriculum. … But that's not the case for the BIE or DOD.�

The BIE directly operates 55 of its schools. While the remaining 128 are tribally controlled, the bureau still acts as a primary source of funding and oversight, giving the federal government significant leverage over those operations.Ìý

But what is not clear is how, exactly, the order will take shape — and how educators will work within its constraints.Ìý

“It will really depend on how much that order is enforced,� Cahill said, “and what exactly they mean by the word ‘patriotic education.’�  

‘The most patriotic citizens’ 

Ira Taken Alive works for Rapid City Area Schools in South Dakota as Indian education director, a job that entails ensuring the district complies with a section of the Civil Rights Act that prohibits racial discrimination in programs that receive federal funds.Ìý

Last year, the U.S. Department of Education Office of Civil Rights determined such discrimination had occurred in the Rapid City district, after an found Native American students were disciplined more harshly than white students and given less access to advanced courses. But another new Trump led the Office of Civil Rights to cancel a resolution agreement with the district that was designed to end such discrimination and that had already been partially implemented.Ìý

Taken Alive, a longtime educator and citizen of the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe, argues that the “patriotic educationâ€� executive order poses no threat at all because Native education and culture are inherently patriotic.Ìý

“We are some of the most patriotic citizens in the country,� Taken Alive said. “Given the fact that our service in the US Armed Forces, percentage-wise, is the highest of all segments of the population. Looking through that lens, I feel that we are very patriotic and that any initiatives that can be derived from those executive orders or that initiative overall, would be an easy fit for Indian Country.�

Taken Alive pointed to the fact that the United States Constitution was inspired by the Haudenosaunee (Iroquois) Confederacy and that Indigenous languages were key factors in winning World Wars I and II, including the use of code talkers to circumvent enemy intelligence.Ìý

“Every event in Indian Country incorporates a veteran group,� Taken Alive said. “We also have, in our Lakota language, anthems to this country, in addition to the ‘Star Spangled Banner,’ we have Lakota flag songs.�

South Dakota has the fourth largest population of Native students in public schools, according to the National Indian Education Association. Due to this, South Dakota has several innovative teaching curricula to incorporate Oceti Sakowin (Lakota, Nakota, Dakota) culture and history into public school lessons.Ìý

The Oceti Sakowin Essential Understandings, launched in 2018, are a set of optional teaching standards public educators can use in lesson planning. The OSEU provides guidelines on teaching about topics like the Wounded Knee Massacre and the Boarding School Era. It also includes ways to incorporate Lakota language and culture into daily lessons.Ìý

“RCAS is the leader in the entire universe when it comes to the Oceti Sakowin Essential Understandings’ incorporation,â€� Taken Alive said.Ìý

In a responding to the executive order, Jason Dropik, executive director, of the National Indian Education Association, urged the Trump administration to “ensure the ‘Ending Indoctrination Strategy’ protects state laws and local tribally led efforts which direct the inclusion of Tribal history and content in K-12 public school curriculum and honors the storied legacies and rich cultures of Tribal Nations.� 

“It is essential that Tribal histories and cultures are taught in public schools with the input and endorsement of local Tribal Nations, parents, and state legislatures,â€� Dropik wrote.Ìý

‘Inherent tensions’ 

Cahill said she, too, believes that there are aspects of the history of Indigenous people in the United States that “absolutely fitâ€� the order, though she said it’s not the whole truth.Ìý

“You can talk about the fact that Native people serve in the military in much higher numbers relative to their population than any other group,â€� Cahill said. “You can talk about Native nations that allied with the United States during the period of expansion.Ìý

“But you can't only talk about that, because that's not the whole truth,� she continued. “So it depends on the definition, and it depends on what they decide ‘patriotic education’ means and what it doesn't mean.� 

Julie Reed is a citizen of the Cherokee Nation and a former public school teacher who is now a history professor alongside Cahill at Penn State.Ìý

She said Trump’s order sets up “inherent tensionsâ€� for educators.Ìý

“There's no way we get to Indigenous dispossession with the U.S. acting in good faith at all times,� Reed said. “We just simply can't get there. Like we can't say, ‘Yes, all the lands were lost, and it was always taken through noble efforts on the part of the U.S. to be fair.’� 

“How do we lose millions and millions of acres of land when Native people do not want to give up that land?� Reed added. “Well, we get it through questionable treaties. We get it through illegal treaties. We get it through throwing out treaties. And that is not living up to what the U.S. said it was.�

That makes it “impossible,� Reed said, to abide by an order that requires teachers to ground their lessons in the “concept that celebration of America’s greatness and history is proper.� 

Cahill noted, though, that the order’s vague language could leave teachers some wiggle room. For example, it defines “patriotic education,� in part, as one that shows how the nation has “admirably grown closer to its noble principles throughout its history.�  

“It seems to me that, if progress is being made, it means those goals were not met at the beginning,� Cahill said. “So I don't see why talking about some of these places where the United States maybe wasn't correct, made some poor choices, but over time has gotten closer and closer to its ideals is an issue.� 

‘Bigger ramifications’

The dangers of imposing a “patrioticâ€� education on Native American students have been seen before, in the Indian boarding school system that lasted from the early 19th century to the late 20th century, Cahill said.Ìý

“The goal was to completely erase Native culture and to replace it with what people in the U.S. – white people – thought of as civilization,â€� she said.Ìý

That involved trying to replace Native peoples’ “pride in their Native nationsâ€� with American patriotism through a profoundly ugly and harmful system of indoctrination.Ìý

Schoolchildren’s hair was cut. They were given new clothes. They were, in many cases, . And they were taught that their relatives were the “bad guysâ€� in the contentious and sometimes violent history between the U.S. and sovereign tribal nations.Ìý

“They're being told that all of the people that raised them, their families, their communities are wrong and bad, and they should think of them as that,â€� Cahill said.Ìý

And they were taught that the “patriotic folks� were those who “put their nations on reservations and then have taken them to new boarding schools.� 

The implications of that version of history were profound and far-reaching, Cahill said. And Trump’s new order could undermine progress made to repair the damage.Ìý

Pressure to ‘conform’

The pressure to adhere to Trump’s order could be especially high in BIE schools, not only because they rely disproportionately on federal funds but also because that funding is already less than other schools get.Ìý

BIE contract schools typically receive just $7,790 per student per year. By contrast, students in the other federally operated school district – the one that serves Department of Defense families – receive some $25,000 per student, according to .Ìý

And the Trump administration’s slashing of federal programs across the board have been felt especially acutely in Indian Country, Reed said, which could only make it harder for BIE educators to navigate the patriotic-education order.Ìý 

“If there's a threat that funds will be cut off to chronically underfunded schools like BIE schools, there is a weight there that those places are put under to conform,� Reed said.

“And so I think there needs to be a real listening to BIE officials and BIE folks involved in BIE education, within tribes and in these schools, to say, ‘What do you think the implications of this are going to be? And how can you see improvements in this? Or how do we maintain the mission of native, centered curricula at the same time that we're trying to meet the demands? What are the potential ways that we can or cannot do our jobs under this policy?�

In response to questions about the order and its implications, however, a BIE spokesperson only responded, “The Bureau of Indian Education is working to determine the next steps in accordance with the Executive Order.� 

The U.S. Department of Education did not respond to a request for comment.Ìý

‘The truth is at stake’

As the Trump administration seeks to implement the order not only in BIE schools but across the country, Cahill said nothing less than “the truth is at stake.� 

“And you have to ask, why is it that there's a sense that we can't tell the truth about the past?� she said. “Because it did happen, and it affects all of us. We live in a present that was shaped by all of these decisions, and in order to understand that present, you have to understand the past. And so to force a false or very narrowly construed definition of history means that we can't actually address bigger social issues, because we won't understand them.� 

She worries that the order will “have a chilling effect on teaching history, because teachers at the primary and secondary level are already doing an enormous amount of work. They don't get paid what they should get paid, and this is reaching into their classrooms and telling them what their curricula should be, and there's an implicit threat behind it, that if you are doing something different, you'll get in trouble. And people aren't going to risk their jobs for that.�

A prescribed “patriotic� history is not, she said, “the truth.� 

“So the entire spirit behind this executive order is un-American to me,â€� Cahill said.Ìý

“It's not a real sense of what happens, how the world works,� she added. “There aren't solely good guys and solely bad guys. It's really messy.�