The women's basketball coach was standing on the ladder on Sunday night. After Haskell Indian Nations University won the league championship, they carefully cut the net final.
This scene is familiar to me at this time of college basketball. But the celebration in Lawrence, Kansas, despite decades of working in sports, was still amazing. Officially, Haskell's coach Adam Strom was a volunteer.
He was fired 16 days ago and swept away with an executive order that led Haskell to expel about a quarter of his workers on Friday in February.
The only other federal university running the only other federal government for native people, the Southwest Indian Institute of Polytechnics in Albuquerque, fired shares of similar workers that day.
More than 140 years have passed since the US first used Lawrence's property as a boarding school to assimilate native children, Haskell students feel that the federal government that controls the university has once again become a force to overturn malicious forces.
The president of the Student Government Association said three of the five instructors had been rejected. Rumors were swirling about whether there were enough canteen workers left to serve food. Seniors wondered whether the university, a sanctuary for Native American students shaped by tradition and tragedy, would remain long enough to earn a degree.
Just as other potential policy changes loom, students, leaders and experts serve Haskell and tens of thousands of students since then, fearing that a federal system to educate Native Americans, already with some of the worst outcomes in the United States, is lurking in a new phase of the crisis.
In Washington, federal terminations are being billed as “optimizations” of bureaucracy. But on Haskell's campus, where at least 103 people are buried, the seemingly indiscriminate budget cuts represent another violation of the government's pledge to Native Americans.
“We don't necessarily repeat the history of the school. Jden Nichols, a member of the Cheyenne tribe in northern Montana, who specializes in American Indian studies, said:
As she said, less than a week after the conference championship game, Tepee stood near the student union in response to the cut.
“We only raise them at the time of the ceremony or in times like this. They are grieving or being attacked by others,” said Tyler Moore, a senior and citizen of the Cherokee tribe, of Tepee.
Haskell President Francis Arpan introduced the request for an interview with the Indian Education Bureau. A spokesman for the Department of the Interior, including the Bureau, said in a one-statement statement that the department “reaffirms its unwavering commitment to the American people while practicing hard-working financial responsibility.”
The administration's quest to reduce federal spending has led to campus officials across the country weighing layoffs, freezes and other steps of employment, but schools like Haskell are particularly vulnerable to disruption as they are directly run by the government. And perhaps the US education system is less familiar with turbulent and crushed promises than what provides federal schools for Indigenous students.
Almost a century after a major federal report on Indigenous conditions warned that “serene education is expensive,” the federal system for teaching Indigenous peoples to Congress has been “stricken by chronic funding shortages” as school rifs could deepen future social issues, and last week in testimony last week, the federal system for teaching Indigenous peoples is “stricken by chronic lack of funds.”
Approximately 45,000 children are enrolled in 23 department-funded schools, with options created by court, law and treaty. As about 200 small universities in Albuquerque are known, in addition to running Haskell and SIPI, the government is financially supporting independently operated tribal universities and universities.
Although some measures of student success have improved, the Indian Education Department's high school graduation rates regularly lag behind the public. From 2020-21, standardized tests showed that one in ten students evaluated were skilled in mathematics, with about 17% being proficient in linguistic arts.
The university of the system is also having problems. The recently reported six-year graduation rate at Haskell was 43%. Generally, nationwide rates are around 62%. Before the hearing last summer, Dr. Alpan, an aide to Congress, was Haskell's eighth president in six years.
Additionally, a 2023 Home Affairs Ministry report, which appeared last year after public servants from the watchdog group sued to obtain compiled copies for environmental responsibility, portrayed Haskell as “severely dysfunctional.” The report concluded in part that the university was paying great attention to sexual assault accusations, “disturbing” the athletic department and “inappropriately” used auxiliary lecturers while federal employees worked beyond job descriptions.
Last December, some Congressional Republicans floated Haskell's new governance structure, depicting mixed reviews on campus, and have yet to clean up Capitol Hill.
Despite university issues, one student after another said that Haskell was one of the few places in academia where his culture felt respected. They argued that reducing the university was more than a violation of government promises. It was an attack on their legacy and future.
Angel Atone Elizara, president of the Student Government, spoke about how the library provided mental medicine and how all the dorms had a dirty room. (“When I ask someone on campus, English is not the coolest language we know,” said Marina Decola, a student member of Nebraska's Winnebago tribe, struggling.)
Students frequently used the term “family” to describe the Haskell community. This semester, the university reported 918 students enrolled, representing 153 tribal countries.
Siana Horn Eagle, a member of the Cheyenne River Sioux Tribe in South Dakota, a social work student, said she was “quarantined” despite starting at another university. She found comfort in Haskell – and learned about the cut when the instructor told the class.
“Essentially, they said they were fired and didn't know what was going to happen to the class,” she said.
Ahtone Elizarraras was preparing for a Valentine's Day dance when she heard it.
“As a native, you're at this school, so you read and prepare you for moments like this,” said Aftone Elizararas, a citizen of Wichita, Oklahoma.
But there is also rage.
“How much more can you take?” Mr. Decola smoked.
Haskell's council committee appealed to Washington. In a letter to federal officials, Dalton Henry, interim president of the advisory board, argued that expelled employees should be restored because they are fulfilling their obligations mandated under the treaty. Last week, students protested outside the Kansas State Capitol.
Later in the week, Dr. Alpan spoke to student government leaders about the reprieve that would allow expelled instructors to finish this semester as a supplement. However, the correction is only temporary for now.
Some of the university workers who have lost their jobs are photography instructors and custodians. On the morning of February 14th, there were rumors among some employees about the cuts.
Strom, who was later in his fourth season as a women's basketball coach, was summoned to the office of the athletic director.
He thought he was talking about sharing gym time with other teams. Instead, the athletic director told him he was off work.
Strom, a member of Yaka Mansion, said he was the contractor for the first three seasons. He was only recently hired full-time as a federal employee, meaning he was still on his probation.
“I felt safe. I really did it,” he said, adding, “I thought being an educator was important in America.”
Aniway Close, a Cherokee Nation citizen and president of the American Indian Higher Education Consortium, said the Trump administration should quickly overturn the fire. Otherwise, she warned that if students decide not to register because they were afraid of university health, they would “have a fine-tuned effect on long-term harm to these institutions.”
She said the tribe-controlled university offers to send volunteer faculty and staff during that time.
Strom decided to stick for the rest of the season and for the coach as a volunteer, just a few miles away from where basketball inventor James Nysmith founded the legendary men's team at the University of Kansas. Currently Kansas coach Bill Self is the highest paying college basketball coach in the United States.
“My coach is a white man, I'm a minority, I'm a Native American,” Strom said at the gym complex, where four native star quilts are adjacent to the American flag.
He paused.
“At the same time, I would rather be better than bitter.”
On Sunday, the volunteer coach and his team won the conference title and secured a spot for the National Association of Associations National Championship Tournament.
But instead of hiring for next season or spending hours preparing for the game, Strom is looking for work and hopes that coaching gigs will find somewhere else.
Even though events like graduation are going well, students are worried about their lives and their way forward on campus.
“I know there's a day this is talked about in history books,” said Moore, who was named one of the best honors of the year, Haskell Brave.
Catie Edmondson Contributed with a report from Washington.
