The U.S. Department of the Interior has renamed five places in California, North Dakota, Tennessee and Texas that previously included a racist term for a Native American woman.
Thursday's changes come as part of a yearlong process in which the historically offensive word “squaw” has been removed from the names of geographic sites across the country.
Interior Secretary Deb Haaland says in a statement that “words matter,” particularly as the agency works to make these sites accessible and welcoming to people of all backgrounds.
She calls the term in question "harmful."