I invite you to join me in co-sponsoring a resolution directing the Legislative Budget and Finance Committee to study the intergenerational impact of the Carlisle Indian Industrial School on Indigenous youth brought to Pennsylvania, and to examine the complicity of state government, religious institutions, academia, philanthropic entities, and the private sector in a broader campaign of cultural genocide.

Located in Cumberland County and operating from 1879 to 1918, Carlisle was the first federally funded off-reservation boarding school for Native children. Its purpose was not education, but erasure. Thousands of children—many forcibly taken from their families—were stripped of their names, languages, and cultures. Many never returned home. Those who survived often carried deep trauma that has rippled through generations.

Pennsylvania cannot remain silent in the face of this history. The state was not merely a bystander; it was host to a national project of forced assimilation and Indigenous dispossession. The ripple effects of this harm are still felt today.

This resolution seeks a clear-eyed, collaborative study—with Indigenous voices at the center—to identify how our public and private institutions enabled these injustices and how we can begin the work of truth-telling, atonement, and healing.

Please join me in this effort to confront the past and forge a more just future.