Unseen and Undercounted: Indigenous Students Misrepresented at Georgetown University

In the 17th century, Fr. Andrew White, S.J., a Jesuit missionary and namesake of Georgetown University’s White-Gravenor Hall, subjected Indigenous children and peoples to forced conversion to Christianity. White’s actions laid the foundation for the creation of residential schools — off-reservation boarding schools that systematically forced assimilation while abusing and stripping Indigenous children of their culture and right to exist. 

Nearly five centuries later, White’s legacy looms as Indigenous students fight for campus visibility — including through how Georgetown collects their data. 

At Georgetown, Indigenous students lack the option to self-identify by specific Indigenous nations, while the university also designates multiracial students, which Indigenous students often identify as, with only their listed “primary” identity. 

For Simone Guité (CAS ’26), a member of the Circle of Indigenous Students Alliance (CISA), a club focused on student-led Indigenous programming, identification with her tribal affiliation connects her to her Chinook roots in northwest Oregon and southwest Washington.

“Tribal affiliation really kind of designates the region that we’re from and the things that are important to us,” Guité told The Hoya. “For my people, salmon is really important to us, versus some of the other students here who come from the Navajo Nation — something that’s really important to their culture is basket weaving. So your cultures and practices really depend on where you come from.”

Beyond preventing students from identifying with specific tribes, these data collection methods may mean the university undercounts Indigenous students.

Guité said Shelbi Nahwilet Meissner (Luiseño & Cupeño), an Indigenous feminist philosopher and former professor at Georgetown, encouraged Indigenous students to solely self-identify as Indigenous when filling out university-issued forms. They otherwise risked losing access to Indigenous resources and being left out of Indigenous community events. 

Meissner said the faculty and administrative staff she worked with seemed to acknowledge that current data collection practices limited on-campus programming.

“If there’s not enough students, we won’t have programming for them, and then if we don’t have programming for them, we’ll never attract more students,” Meissner told The Hoya. 

Self-Determination by Indigenous Peoples

According to a university spokesperson, Georgetown collects data on race and ethnicity using guidelines from the White House Office of Management and Budget (OMB)’s Statistical Policy Directive 15, which instructs federal agencies on collecting data.

The spokesperson said the directive currently “does not include either verified or self-identified tribal membership,” although they monitor OMB’s guidelines in case the directive is updated.

However, Directive 15 recommends agencies use write-in fields to allow for self-identification when possible

“Providing a write-in field is especially critical for the American Indian or Alaska Native category, which does not have required detailed categories under these standards,” the directive reads.

Georgetown’s official enrollment for the 2023-24 academic year listed five American Indian or Alaskan Native students as degree-seeking undergraduates, while multi-racial and unmarked categories — students who have multiple identities, including Indigeneity — listed 782. 

Indigenous peoples often hold multiple racial and ethnic identities, meaning that the university’s practice of collecting Native student data based on primary self-identifiers excludes students who belong to multiple racial identities from the total number of Indigenous students. 

Rio Medina, an Otomi-Chichimeca, Pueblo (Tewa, Yaqui) community builder and co-founder of Long Beach City College’s Native American Indigenous Collaborative — which seeks to encourage Indigenous peoples and communities to embrace their Indigeneity — said data collection practices to record Indigenous student data does not account for those who identify beyond just Native. 

“Institutions often do not use data collection practices that are able to disaggregate Native identities, especially in Latinx, Black and Multi-Ethnicity Indigenous students and those who feel they are not ‘Native enough,’” Medina told The Hoya.

Medina said these practices can have problematic implications, as they disregard cultural traditions. 

“There is a real lack of cultural relevance within these larger institutions, agencies and companies that can’t understand the dynamic of being Native in 2025,” Medina said.

According to Medina, large universities like Georgetown typically use these data collection processes to identify the population of Indigenous students so that they can determine how much to fund affinity organizations or programs linked to racial or ethnic identities.

According to the university website for Race and Ethnicity Reporting, they use this data to build community. 

“Analyzing and effectively communicating data about our community is an important component of Georgetown’s approach to fostering a diverse, equitable and inclusive learning and working environment,” the website reads. 

Mariana Gomez (GRD ’28), a doctoral candidate in philosophy with an Indigenous background from Mexico and family from the Otomi and Mexica cultures, said self-identifying data is insufficient because it disregards traditional kinship networks.

“Our associations with Indigeneity come from our familial ties, and unfortunately, white supremacy also runs through some cultures still and the hesitance, you know, is it comes from its own particular history. But that doesn’t mean they’re not Indigenous,” Gomez told The Hoya.

Gomez said U.S. government data collection practices including measuring blood quantum — which determines one’s tribal enrollment according to the perceived percentage of DNA associated with a particular tribal nation — violate the sovereignty of Indigenous peoples to accurately identify with their Indigeneity on racial identification forms. 

Medina said these data collection practices are typically used to allocate funding sources based on identity populations, with larger racial and ethnic groups typically receiving more funding.

“These agencies are identifying specific identity populations to ensure funding outcomes are met, and this causes skewed data sources and collection,” Medina said.

Guité said the discrepancy between the number of students whom Georgetown’s system categorizes as Indigenous and the actual number of students with Indigenous heritage factors into a lack of programming geared toward Indigenous students, since the university unwittingly underestimates its Indigenous population.

“If they only think there are five Indigenous students here, then they probably are not giving it much thought, which is still unfair to those five students whom they think are the only population they’re serving,” Guité said. 

Serene Gonzalez (CAS ’27), a CISA member, said an Indigenous student’s proximity to their tribal nations strongly influences their connection to their Indigeneity and willingness to identify. 

“I think that goes along with students as well who may have Indigenous backgrounds but are not aware of it. One or two don’t feel connected themselves with their Indigeneity simply because they did not grow up on their own lands. They did not grow up with the Indigenous community around them,” Gonzalez told The Hoya.

On-campus Programming

CISA serves as a way for Indigenous people to celebrate Indigenous culture on campus, yet Indigenous students have concerns when the university does not hold official events to recognize Indigenous peoples presence on campus.

According to the university spokesperson, Georgetown recognizes heritage months for both student and faculty communities, providing funding to student groups to hold events.

“Georgetown supports student group and faculty programming for many heritage months throughout the year, including through monetary support to student groups,” the spokesperson wrote.

This funding can be used for programming, community dinners, purchasing materials and more, according to the spokesperson. 

Last April, CISA collaborated with the president’s office and Campus Ministry to host an art showcase spotlighting Indigenous students’ songs and poetry. 

However, while Georgetown hosts events to celebrate other heritage months, including Black History Month, Latine Heritage Month, Asian American and Pacific Islander (AAPI) Month and Jesuit Heritage Month, the events Georgetown highlighted last November for Native American Heritage Month took place outside the Georgetown community. 

Gonzalez said she was dismayed at what she sees as the university’s lack of effort in showcasing Native American Heritage Month.

“Nothing was for the university. The university wasn’t having any lectures, which would be a great opportunity,” Gonzalez said. “But they can’t backtrack now.”

Guité added CISA has not been able to advise the university on how to celebrate Indigenous culture.

“We’ve never been consulted on, like, ‘what would you like to see for Indigenous peoples month?’ And I think that that would be really nice, because it kind of feels like we just get this email one month a year, and it’s kind of like pre-planned stuff that nobody’s really been asked about,” Guité said.

Gonzalez said she wants to see the university hire more Indigenous faculty members to educate and commemorate the community’s cultures. 

“I think one thing I myself would advocate more for is Indigenous faculty. I feel like that’s very important,” Gonzalez said. “There are a lot of Indigenous scholars who should have the opportunity, especially here to speak.”

Meissner, who left Georgetown in 2023 to join the faculty of the University of Maryland, College Park, also said her advocacy for Georgetown’s administration to address Indigenous issues received little response from the university. 

“It seemed like a really big blind spot for Georgetown just kind of in general,” Meissner said. 

Meissner said she found it difficult to build a community or find resources at Georgetown and said the university denied her funding to establish an Indigenous student center that would have supported Indigenous graduate students in their research and brought together Indigenous undergraduate students. 

According to Meissner, the University of Maryland gave her the funding to realize this initiative — now known as the Indigenous Futures Lab — and serves as its founding director.

Toward a future of recognition

As Georgetown continues to undercount the Indigenous student population, Indigenous students envision a campus that better celebrates their Indigeneity.

Gonzalez said a more accurate representation of Indigenous peoples and cultures on campus would make Indigenous students more comfortable. 

“I think for me, having a more accurate representation of Indigeneity in general, would be nice, simply because with that, more Indigenous students would come and feel comfortable being on the Georgetown campus,” Gonzalez said.

Gomez added that fostering community with other Indigenous students would bolster efforts to support Indigenous students. 

“I think that’s what I want to do as a PhD student: to have a strong connection with the Indigenous undergrads, to sort of start demanding the university, who will not easily hand us anything, to host things for us, to be able to thrive in this university, just like the majority of the predominantly white institution seems to thrive,” Gomez said. 

Meissner said Georgetown should hire a tribal liaison to work with tribal communities and address data collection issues.

“I think that another thing that would really benefit Georgetown is a tribal liaison, or like a specific administrative role that works with tribal communities, knows how to do recruitment and retention, knows how to deal with the data issues,” she said.

Medina said engaging local community leaders and elders can reform data collection practices.

“Working with local Native elders and leaders to create a collaboration that informs the systematic practices and allows for the community to access their young people is so important to doing this work,” Medina said.

“Formal agreements are actually encouraged by Native communities in order to ensure accountability and outcomes are met with clear and transparent information,” Medina added. “Building partnerships with local elders and community leaders provides cultural insight to ensure relevant data practices are being employed.”

Guité said working together with Indigenous communities is how Georgetown and the government can improve data collection categories to better represent Indigenous people. 

“We still exist. Even though the government doesn’t recognize that, it’s really important for our longevity and tribal affiliation,” Guité said. “Even data collection like that — although it may not seem super important in that sense — is still a public record that my people are here and we are still fighting.”

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