View livestream of Wabanaki Studies Report release event held on Indigenous People’s Day

On Indigenous People’s Day, 2022, we celebrated the release of a new report, “The Wabanaki Studies Law: 21 Years After Implementation.” The Wabanaki Studies Law, passed in 2001, requires every school in the state to implement Maine Native American studies into its curriculum. The report investigates how the law has been unevenly implemented over the past two decades and what should be done to improve compliance.

The digital event featured a keynote by the author and sponsor of the original legislation, Hon. Donna Loring, former representative of the Penobscot Nation to the Maine House of Representatives, and was followed by a panel discussion featuring report co-authors Abbe Museum, ACLU of Maine, the Maine Indian Tribal-State Commission, and Wabanaki Alliance.

The report was released on October 10th, 2022, Indigenous People’s Day.

View the livestreamed event on YouTube, accessible here.

Twenty-one years after the Maine Legislature passed a groundbreaking law requiring all schools to teach Maine K-12 students about Wabanaki territories, economic systems, cultural systems, governments and political systems, as well as the Wabanaki tribes’ relationships with local, state, national and international governments, four organizations are releasing a report analyzing the law’s implementation thus far and suggesting ways to improve compliance at the state and local level.