Overview:  After World War II, there was a conservative rejection of Commissioner of Indian Affairs John Collier's policies and a return to the previous assimilationist polices.  Where Collier had sought to strengthen tribal self-government, Congress in the 1950s sought to terminate Indian reservations and end any special status for American Indians.

However, new leadership in the National Congress of American Indians and other organizations fought termination, and in 1970, President Richard Nixon declared in a special message to the U.S. Congress:

"The story of the Indian in America is something more than the record of the white man's frequent aggression, broken agreements, intermittent remorse and prolonged failure. It is a record also of endurance, of survival, of adaptation and creativity in the face of overwhelming obstacles. It is a record of enormous contributions to this country--to its art and culture, to its strength and spirit, to its sense of history and its sense of purpose."

"It is long past time that the Indian policies of the Federal government began to recognize and build upon the capacities and insights of the Indian people. Both as a matter of justice and as a matter of enlightened social policy, we must begin to act on the basis of what the Indians themselves have long been telling us. The time has come to break decisively with the past and to create the conditions for a new era in which the Indian future is determined by Indian acts and Indian decisions."

Along with this rejection of termination came two new studies of Indian education that echoed the findings of the Meriam Report.  In their 1972 book, To Live on This Earth, Estelle Fuchs and Robert J. Havighurst summarized the results of a national study of Indian education. They wrote, "With minor exceptions the history of Indian education had been primarily the transmission of white American education, little altered, to the Indian child as a one-way process. The institution of the school is one that was imposed by and controlled by the non-Indian society, its pedagogy and curriculum little changed for the Indian children, its goals primarily aimed at removing the child from his aboriginal culture and assimilating him into the dominant white culture. Whether coercive or persuasive, this assimilationist goal of schooling has been minimally effective with Indian children, as indicated by their record of absenteeism, retardation, and high dropout rates."

The second study published in 1969 by the Special Senate Subcommittee on Indian Education was titled Indian Education: A National Tragedy--a National Challenge.  This study found most American Indian students and parents approved of their schools, but American Indian community leaders were "overwhelmingly in favor of the school doing something to help Indian students learn about their tribal culture."  The most common parental suggestion was "schools should pay more attention to the Indian heritage."

This renewed criticism of American Indian education led to the passage of the Indian Education Act of 1972 and the Indian Self-Determination and Education Assistance Act of 1975.  These acts provided funding for special programs for American Indian students and for more American Indian control of Indian education.