Paying Old Debts

In 1862, the U.S. House of representatives granted land to states for the express purpose of supporting the development of public universities. In turn, states were given the responsibility for providing the land upon which these universities would be built, as well as contributing monetarily to their ongoing development. Known as the Morrill Act, this congressional action was designed to support at least one institution of higher learning in each state that would offer access to an affordable and practical college degree, opening the door to the American dream for the "industrial classes." However the publication of the Land-Grab Universities report (Lee & Ahtone, 2020) blew the doors off the central narrative surrounding the foundation of America's original Land Grant universities. The compendium provided exact details regarding amounts of land taken from specific tribal nations and meticulously documented sums of monies raised in the sale of those territories. In short, the bill designed to create public universities in each state-- sponsored by Senator Justin Morrill of Vermont and signed into law by President Abraham Lincoln--gave away territories taken from Native nations typically by brute force or lopsided treaties. Sparked by the Land-Grab Universities report, a faculty and staff group from the Ohio State University (OSU) created the Stepping Out and Stepping Up (SOSU) racial justice project to address the dispossession and sale of tribal lands used to fund the establishment of OSU. The SOSU initiative was developed in partnership with First Nations Development Institute (FNDI), the largest Native-controlled economic justice organization in the United States that provides economic development assistance, research, and advocacy for reservations and tribal communities.