Indian placement program: legal thriller
Posted: Fri Nov 18, 2016 7:15 am
No, this is not the title of a new John Grisham novel,but a retired program the church used to run. The idea was to take young, Native American boys and girls out of their homes and place them with non-native families during the school year. Education opportunities were recognized as poor on Indian reservations.
What could possibly go wrong? Well, a few bad apples thought it easy to use this program to rape and abuse young boys and girls. Now, after many years, some of the abused are suing the church, and appear to be winning against the law firm Kirton McKonkie. Only Pres. Monson remains as a senior leader during this time, and he may be required to bear his testimony in court.
I had a boy in my ward and elementary school class named Dennis who was part of this program. It did help many kids get a much better education. I was too young to notice the administrative parts of this program, but I do remember Dennis missing his family back home. Was the child carefully vetted first, or did they just rip them from their homes and ship them to Utah and Idaho?
http://www.sltrib.com/news/4596141-155/ ... -church-to
Here is an Ensign article about the program from many years ago.
https://www.lds.org/ensign/1971/07/lama ... h?lang=eng
What could possibly go wrong? Well, a few bad apples thought it easy to use this program to rape and abuse young boys and girls. Now, after many years, some of the abused are suing the church, and appear to be winning against the law firm Kirton McKonkie. Only Pres. Monson remains as a senior leader during this time, and he may be required to bear his testimony in court.
I had a boy in my ward and elementary school class named Dennis who was part of this program. It did help many kids get a much better education. I was too young to notice the administrative parts of this program, but I do remember Dennis missing his family back home. Was the child carefully vetted first, or did they just rip them from their homes and ship them to Utah and Idaho?
http://www.sltrib.com/news/4596141-155/ ... -church-to
Here is an Ensign article about the program from many years ago.
https://www.lds.org/ensign/1971/07/lama ... h?lang=eng