Duke University will offer its first Cherokee language course this fall, a move that holds significant historical implications for the school. Led by Gilliam Jackson, a fluent Cherokee speaker from the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians, the course represents more than just an addition to the university’s curriculum — it’s a critical step in acknowledging its history of suppressing the language.

Over a century ago, Duke University, then known as Trinity College, operated the Cherokee Industrial Indian Boarding School in North Carolina. This institution was part of a broader federal effort to assimilate Native American children, often at the expense of their languages and cultural identities. The reopening of a Cherokee language course at Duke marks a symbolic return of the language to a place where it was once suppressed.

Jackson, who has taught Cherokee at other colleges such as Stanford University and the University of North Carolina at Asheville, will be instructing students in a dialect familiar to his community in Snowbird, North Carolina. His approach to teaching goes beyond language instruction; it is an effort to preserve and pass on the cultural heritage embedded in the Cherokee language.

While the course will primarily be conducted online, Jackson plans to offer some in-person sessions. These experiences are designed to provide students with a deeper connection to the language and the people who speak it. The Cherokee language course will fulfill the university’s foreign language requirement, making it accessible to a wide range of students.

The course is part of Duke’s broader Native American Studies Initiative, which was launched in July 2023. This initiative aims to integrate Indigenous perspectives into the academic fabric of the university. The establishment of this course at Duke University serves as a poignant reminder of the university’s past while looking forward to a future where Indigenous languages are celebrated and preserved.