On Wednesday, April 15, 2026, Native American remains were unearthed during a campus construction project by the University of California, Berkeley, raising questions regarding the appropriate next steps. Construction has been halted and the Native American Heritage Commission alerted, however, the university has been known to mishandle similar occurrences in the past. According to a 2023 NBC Bay Area article, UC Berkeley holds the most indigenous remains out of any US institution. For decades, the Muwekma Ohlone tribe has asked for the return of their ancestral remains, but only in 2023 did this repatriation begin, despite a 1990 law that requires federally funded institutions to report and facilitate the return of such remains. A UC Berkeley online dashboard, most recently updated in February of 2026, identified that the University still possesses over 300,000 remains and artifacts. In light of this recent discovery during construction, and paired with the historical context, UC Berkeley must address these incidents with urgency and care, and cannot not continue to disregard their participation in withholding Indigenous remains.
The university has a history of disregarding and disrespecting the continued presence and advocacy of the Native tribes in the Bay Area. A 2025 LA Times article credits UC Berkeley, along with other longstanding California universities, as a key player in the formation of California's historical and cultural identity. Through textbooks and written histories, UC Berkeley has contributed to the representation of a flawed image of Native Americans as only fixtures of the past.UC Berkeley played a significant role in the development of the atomic bomb, which used indigenous burial grounds for nuclear testing in Los Alamos, New Mexico.
Berkeley as a city has begun to grapple with these issues, as seen in the increased implementation of Native American ethnic studies classes and land acknowledgments. A prolific example includes the restoration of land into indigenous hands and the resolution of the debates surrounding the West Berkeley Shellmound. The property has now been bought by the Sogorea Te’ Land Trust, an Ohlone Non Profit.
To contribute to this progress, UC Berkeley must better comply with federal laws and work closely with all impacted Indigenous groups to ensure proper reparations are made. The responsibility should not fall on any one tribe to regain possession of their artifacts, but rather UC Berkeley themselves. Primarily, UC Berkeley must commit to greater transparency in their repatriation efforts. Considering their historic decade-long delays in returns of remains, UC Berkeley should establish and commit to upholding a public timeline for repatriation efforts. They should be in direct communication with Indigenous communities to ensure accountability goes further than just an apology.
Additionally, Berkeley as a city should heavily consider establishing a rigid land-based tax — a growing initiative that provides money and resources to Indigenous communities paid through taxes of the people situated on their ancestral land. While this already exists in the Bay Area, specifically through something called the “Shuumi Land Tax” which is run by the Sogorea Te’ Land Trust, it is entirely optional and not effectively enforced by Berkeley. Implementing a more standardized system is not something that would necessarily fulfill or replace the more thorough actions of land returns, or co-ownership of the land that the campus now encompasses.
In congruence with more urgency in repatriations and further cooperation with UC Berkeley’s Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act (NAGPRA) Advisory Committee, this would pave a valuable path towards more cemented accountability within Berkeley, a necessary effort to make for the local Indigenous groups that have been overlooked for centuries.