The Remove the Stain Act would rescind the 20 Medals of Honor awarded to U.S. 7th Cavalry soldiers following the Wounded Knee Massacre on December 29, 1890, when armed troops killed approximately 350–375 unarmed Lakota people, including women and children, at Wounded Knee Creek in South Dakota. The bill's sponsors argue that awarding the military's highest honor for participation in this event contradicts the Medal of Honor's purpose of recognizing outstanding gallantry, noting that many soldiers were actually killed by friendly fire and that a commanding general at the time called it "a brutal, cold-blooded massacre." The legislation would remove the recipients' names from official Medal of Honor rolls but would not require them to return their medals or lose any military benefits. The bill responds to longstanding requests from Native American tribes and the National Congress of American Indians, first formally raised in 2001, to invalidate these medals in recognition of the historical atrocity.
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