U.S. Senate committee advances bill to investigate history of Indian boarding schools

WASHINGTON — The Senate Committee on Indian Affairs has advanced a bill to establish a federal “truth and healing” commission to examine Indian boarding school policies.

The bill is part of an effort to reckon with the United States’ history of government-run boarding schools that forcibly removed Native children from their homes. The schools subjected Indigenous youths to physical, sexual and emotional abuse, and last year a federal study identified hundreds of deaths of Native Americans, Alaska Natives and Native Hawaiians associated with the schools.

More than 20 such facilities were based...