U.S. Commission on Civil Rights Report: Federal Government Does Not Live Up to Obligations to Native Americans

American Indian veterans from Great Lakes served as color guard at National Congress of American Indians opening ceremony in Milwaukee in October 2917. Native News Online photo by Levi Rickert

Published December 21, 2018

WASHINGTON — On Thursday, the U.S Commission on Civil Rights released a 314-page report entitled, “Broken Promises: Continuing Federal Funding Shortfall for Native Americans” that makes clear the federal has not lived up to its obligations to American Indians and Alaska Natives.

The report is an update to the 2003 U.S Commission on Civil Rights’ “A Quiet Crisis: Federal Funding and Unmet Needs in Indian Country.”

Most of the same problems that plague Indian Country now are ongoing problems disclosed in the Commission’s first report.

The report states: “Federal funding for Native American programs across the government remains grossly inadequate to meet the most basic needs the federal government is obligated to provide. Native American program budgets generally remain a barely perceptible and decreasing percentage of agency budgets. Since 2003, funding for Native American programs has mostly remained flat, and in the few cases where there have been increases, they have barely kept up with inflation or have actually resulted in decreased spending power.”

Read the full Broken Promises Report here: https://www.usccr.gov/pubs/2018/12-20-Broken-Promises.pdf

The Commission reported the following key findings:

I.  The Trust Relationship

  • The special government-to-government relationship between the federal government and Indian tribes is based on Article I, Section 8 of the Constitution, and has been shaped and defined by 375 treaties between the federal government and Indian tribes, Supreme Court decisions, laws, regulations, Executive Orders, and the customary practices of foreign relations. Congress has also passed over 150 laws that promote the welfare of Native Hawaiians and establish a special political and legal relationship similar to the trust relationship with other Native Americans.
  • Since our nation’s founding, the United States and Native Americans have committed to and sustained this special trust relationship, which obligates the federal government to promote tribal self-government, support the general welfare of Native American tribes and villages, and to protect their lands and resources. Courts have acknowledged the legal status of Native Americans as both a sovereign political entity and as a racial group with constitutionally guaranteed rights to equal protection. Federal laws dealing with Native Americans are not based upon impermissible racial classifications and are expressly provided for in the Constitution.
  • In the Commission’s 2003 A Quiet Crisis report, the Commission documented the federal government’s historic failure to carry out its promises and trust obligations. These failures included longstanding and continuing disregard for tribes’ infrastructure, self-governance, housing, education, health, and economic development. The Commission found these failures created a civil rights crisis in our nation. Despite some progress, the crisis remains and the federal government continues to fail to adequately support the social and economic welfare of Native Americans.

II.  Data

  • Data on Native American and Native Hawaiians and Other Pacific Islander racial groups are often incomplete, inaccurate, old, or not tracked by the federal government. The best available data suggest sometimes extreme social and economic disparities between these communities and national averages. There is a critical need for more accurate and current data collection for these communities, including disaggregated data on American Indian, Alaska Native, and Native Hawaiian and Other Pacific Islander subpopulations, to improve the ability of federal, state, local, and tribal governments to monitor conditions and make more informed policy and spending decisions.

III.  Federal Expenditures

  • Health, education, public safety, environmental quality, and business development are interconnected, and investment in these areas in Indian Country promotes a cycle of social and economic prosperity.
  • Federal programs designed to support the social and economic well-being of Native Americans remain chronically underfunded and sometimes inefficiently structured, which leaves many basic needs in the Native American community unmet and contributes to the inequities observed in Native American communities.
  • More than 20 federal agencies provide targeted services to Native Americans. Major programs that are underfunded include: o U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) and Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA) public safety and justice programs; o IHS health care, behavioral health, urban Indian health, and water sanitation programs; o DOI programs such as BIE programs and BIA real estate services and forest, wildlife, and road maintenance programs; and o U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) programs that help meet the housing needs of Native Americans and Native Hawaiians.

IV.  Tribal Sovereignty

  • Tribal nations are distinctive sovereigns that have a special government-to-government relationship with the United States. Unequal treatment of tribal governments and lack of full recognition of the sovereign status of tribal governments by state and federal governments, laws, and policies diminish tribal self-determination and negatively impact criminal justice, health, education, housing and economic outcomes for Native Americans.

V. Criminal Justice

  • Native Americans collectively suffer from one of the nation’s highest rates of crime and victimization. The federal government has a trust responsibility to provide for public safety in Indian Country. Although overall funding for public safety in Indian Country has increased, it does not come close to meeting the public safety needs in Indian Country or the needs to police and protect natural resources.

VI.  Health Care

  • The federal trust relationship establishes a responsibility to provide health care to Native Americans. Resulting in part from the failure of the federal government to honor its trust responsibilities, vast health disparities exist between Native Americans and other populations.
  • Funding for the IHS and Native American health care is inequitable and unequal. IHS expenditures per capita remain well below other federal health care programs, and overall IHS funding covers only a fraction of Native American health care needs, including behavioral health needs to address the suicide epidemic in Indian Country.

VII.  Education

  • The most recent available data reflect that Native American students comprise 1.1 percent (0.5 million) of the total 50.6 million public school students in the U.S., but Native American students experience discernable disparities in access to educational opportunity, compared to their non-Native peers. These disparities in educational opportunities have a profound impact on the social and economic opportunities and well-being of Native students and of Native communities. Educational disparities in access to educational opportunity also exist between Native Hawaiian and non-Hawaiian students.
  • The federal government has failed in its trust obligation to provide educational services that address the unique situation of Native American students.

VIII. Housing

  • Since the Commission’s 2003 report, the housing crisis in Indian Country has worsened. In addition to the continuing lack of affordable housing in Indian Country, since 2003, the number of Native Americans living in overcrowded households or households without adequate kitchens or plumbing has grown. Native Hawaiians experience similar housing issues such as lower home ownership rates, housing with inadequate plumbing, kitchens, and electric/heating systems, and overcrowded housing.
  • The federal government’s ongoing failure to increase funding for the Indian Housing Block Grant (Block Grant) program has (1) been a major obstacle to maintaining aging housing stock and increasing total housing in Indian Country and (2) steadily eroded the number of new affordable housing units developed in Indian Country each year.

IX.  Economic Development

  • While many Native Americans are succeeding as teachers, doctors, lawyers, artists, writers, scientists, and entrepreneurs, the poverty rate of Native Americans is approximately twice the national average. They experience higher rates of unemployment than any other racial group. The unemployment rate for Native Americans approaches 80 percent or higher on some reservations. Individuals on tribal land are more likely to lack access to broadband internet compared to other individuals living in rural areas.
  • The federal government has failed to honor its trust responsibility to promote Native American self-determination via its support of economic development in Indian country. The federal government has failed to assist the tribes with the individualized economic development necessary for tribes to exercise self-determination and make a knowledgeable decision as to how to best develop and manage their nation’s resources for the tribe’s benefit.

The Commission majority approved key recommendations including the following:

I. Keeping Promises

•  The federal government should invest in Native American communities because such
investment strengthens America.

II. Tribal Sovereignty

•  The federal governmentshould adopt policiesfor Native American programs and programs
that affect Native Americans that promote equal treatment of tribal governments as
compared to other governments.

III.  Data Collection

•  Congress should provide funding to establish an interagency working group to share
expertise and develop and improve systems and methodologies that federal government
agencies could replicate for the collection of accurate and disaggregated data on small and
hard to count populations such as the Native American and Native Hawaiian or Other
Pacific Islander racial groups.

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