November 24, 2025
Opinion. As Congress weighed releasing the Epstein files last week, the Trump administration quietly announced plans to dismantle the U.S. Department of Education — shifting programs that serve Native students to other agencies without consulting a single tribe.
Currents
Happy Native American Heritage Month! Each November, Native American Heritage Month is celebrated in the United States. While many Native Americans like to say we celebrate being Native Americans year round, it the month present opportunies to reflect on our ancestors, history, and culture.
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Across the country today, museums are being forced to reckon with the truth. For centuries, most mainstream museums were built from taking — taking objects, taking stories, taking lands. They displayed the Ancestors of Native Nations under the banner of “education,” while silencing the very Peoples those Ancestors came from.
Opinion
Opinion. As Congress weighed releasing the Epstein files last week, the Trump administration quietly announced plans to dismantle the U.S. Department of Education — shifting programs that serve Native students to other agencies without consulting a single tribe.
Guest Opinion. During Native American Heritage Month, and just ahead of Thanksgiving, U.S. Secretary of Education Linda McMahon announced on Nov. 18 that “the Trump administration is taking bold action to break up the federal education bureaucracy and return education to the states.” On the surface, this may have some appeal, especially given that the U.S. education system was originally designed to allow local control. But in the not-so-distant past, “local control” meant a lack of opportunity—and, often, outright discrimination—against people of color like me. I was a public-school failure who dropped out at 15. With 12 graduate-level letters behind my name—and another three for my GED—I’m proof our people can accomplish anything when afforded educational opportunity.
Sovereignty
Before sunrise Thursday, hundreds of Indigenous people and non-Native allies are expected to gather on Alcatraz Island for the annual Indigenous Peoples Gathering Sunrise Ceremony, organized by the International Indian Treaty Council.
Less than a day after Navajo Nation Council Speaker Crystalyne Curley introduced legislation seeking the removal of both Navajo Nation President Buu Nygren and Vice President Richelle Montoya, Montoya issued a sharply worded statement distancing herself from Nygren and asserting she was excluded from key decision-making.
Education
In wake of Tuesday's announcement that the Trump administration is dismantling the U.S. Department of Education, the American Indian College Fund is warning that the Trump administration’s plan to transfer more than a dozen federal education programs to other agencies could jeopardize Native students’ access to critical services and undermine the federal government’s trust and treaty obligations.
Little Priest Tribal College has received a $5 million gift from the MacKenzie Scott Foundation (Yield Giving), the largest donation in the institution’s history since its founding in 1996.
Arts & Entertainment
The Association on American Indian Affairs will host its fourth annual Tribal Museums Day beginning Saturday, Dec. 6, with a live-streamed event kicking off a weeklong celebration running through Dec. 12.
A new book, In Light and Shadow: A Photographic History from Indigenous America , gathers more than 250 images by Indigenous photographers from the 1800s to today.
Health
Environment
Leaders of the Chilkat Indian Village of Klukwan and the conservation group Chilkat Forever are warning the new owners of the Palmer mine project that they will face “sustained and unyielding opposition” if they pursue hardrock mining in the Chilkat Valley.
Two South Texas tribes and a local environmental group are calling on the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to revoke a federal permit for a proposed export terminal at Donnel Point, saying new environmental and cultural findings invalidate the original approval.