Tribes and Native American students sue over Bureau of Indian Education firings
Source: AP
Updated 12:59 PM EST, March 8, 2025
NORMAN, Okla. (AP) — Three tribal nations and five Native American students say in a lawsuit that the Trump administration has failed its legal obligations to tribes when it cut jobs at Bureau of Indian Education schools. Firings at two colleges as part of the administration’s cuts to federal agencies, with the help of Elon Musk, have left students and staff with unsafe conditions, canceled classes, and delayed financial aid, according to the lawsuit Friday.
Lawyers at the Native American Rights Fund filed the suit in federal court in the nation’s capital against the heads of the Interior Department, the Bureau of Indian Affairs and the Office of Indian Education Programs on behalf of the Pueblo of Isleta, the Prairie Band Potawatomi Nation, and the Cheyenne and Arapaho Tribes. The tribes allege they were not consulted when the federal government laid off several employees at the two colleges under the purview of the BIE.
Nearly one-quarter of the staff at the Southwestern Indian Polytechnic Institute in Albuquerque, New Mexico, including nine instructors, were fired or forced to resign in February. The lawsuit alleges that security and maintenance firings have left the campus unsafe, including two power outages in the past few weeks that went unresolved due to the lack of staff. One SIPI student named in the lawsuit, Kaiya Brown, said in the filing that her dorm was without power for 13 hours. “Ms. Brown was forced to leave her dorm residence and drive to a second location to be able to complete her school assignments,” according to the lawsuit.
Haskell Indian Nations University in Kansas lost more than one-quarter of its staff, including “the Dean of Students, instructors, property management specialists, coaches, tutors, residential advisors, academic advisors, custodians, and food services employees” as well as its only bus driver, the lawsuit states. It also notes that Haskell’s student center has been shuttered and students reported their financial aid has either been delayed or has not been disbursed.
Read more: https://apnews.com/article/trump-native-american-bureau-of-indian-education-df54c469494e3a2f48321ab76f5b6930
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