At University of Minnesota Morris campus, students demand search for Indian boarding school victims Campus sits on site of Native boarding school. July 24, 2021 5:55pm Text size Copy shortlink:
A statue of an Anishinaabe grandmother stands about 8 feet tall in the heart of the University of Minnesota Morris campus. A small boy wearing an American Indian boarding school uniform clutches the grandmother s side while a little girl hides behind her, showing her reluctance to join the boy at the school.
The sculpture was installed in 2018 as a reminder of this site s dark history. Decades before the U s Morris campus opened in 1960, a boarding school that separated Native American children from their families and tried to forcibly assimilate them into white culture stood in its place.