The American Bar Association House of Delegates recently concluded its annual meeting after approving new policy that asks Congress to enact legislation to amend the U.S. Bankruptcy Code to permit student loans to be discharged in bankruptcy without needing to prove undue hardship.
The HOD, as the 597-member policy-making body is known, also adopted policy that urges all individuals, governments and organizations to support the U.S. Department of Interior’s Indian Boarding School Initiative and the Truth and Healing Commission.
The new federal effort partners with tribal nations and organizations to investigate the extent for which the United States established forced boarding schools to eradicate Indigenous culture, similar to an effort ongoing in Canada.
Advocates for the student loan policy, which was approved 251-71, said the change could help thousands of young lawyers grappling with a challenging job environment and as much as $145,000 or more in student loans.
They also noted that a recent survey by the ABA Young Lawyers Division showed that more than 75 percent of young lawyers surveyed were straddled with significant student loans and have modified life milestones because of their debt situation.
The federal government’s investigation in atrocities involving Indigenous people, which Resolution 801 embraced, seeks to gather information on possible unmarked graves at boarding school facilities in the U.S., and on the decades of institutionalized, federally funded cultural assimilation that has led to a host of negative outcomes for survivors and their families, from mental health issues to the loss of entire communal generations.
The new ABA policy emerged this summer concurrent with media reports, mostly from Canada, that found that authorities more than a century ago engaged in efforts to assimilate and “civilize” Indigenous children through the eradication of tribal culture.
Then-ABA President Patricia Lee Refo spearheaded the resolution after visiting the Navajo Nation last month, and tribal leaders asked for ABA assistance in their efforts to determine what occurred in this country.
By 1909, according to the report accompanying the resolution, there were more than175 boarding schools and more than 300 day schools in the United States alone.
Debate on the resolution, which was adopted by a 293-10 vote, generated intense emotion, including remarks from Brad Regehr of Winnipeg, Canada, current president of the Canadian Bar Association, a member of the Peter Ballantyne Cree Nation in Saskatchewan.
The House also adopted ABA Principles on Law Enforcement Body-Worn Camera Policies.
Resolution 604, seeks appropriate government entities to develop comprehensive policies regarding the use of body-worn cameras, as well as the use and storage of their footage, among eight principles.
The HOD also adopted:
• Resolution 608, which urges legislation to provide all employees a living wage.
• Resolution 609, which opposes any federal, state, local, territorial and tribal legislation, regulation or policy that prohibits transgender students from participating in athletics in accordance with their gender identity.
• Resolution 507, which opposes the continued use of private prisons for detention or corrections purposes and urges all governmental units to terminate their contracts with private prisons.
• Resolution 509, which urges the highest court or bar admission authority of each jurisdiction to adopt rules that would allow attorneys in their jurisdiction to earn continuing education credit for service as a poll or election worker.
• Resolution 514, which seeks adoption of federal and local hate crime legislation and specifies civil remedies and First Amendment protections to be built into the legislation. The policy specifically mentions that Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders are covered by the resolution.
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