Tribes and Students Sue Trump Administration Over Firings at Native Schools

A coalition of Native American tribes and students has filed a lawsuit against the Trump administration, seeking to overturn the recent dismissal of federal employees at Native schools—a move they argue has significantly diminished the quality of education.

The layoffs, part of a broader workforce reduction led by the Department of Government Efficiency, have resulted in the elimination of thousands of federal jobs since January. Among those affected were nearly a quarter of the staff at the nation’s only two federally operated colleges for Native students: Haskell Indian Nations University in Lawrence, Kansas, and Southwestern Indian Polytechnic Institute in Albuquerque, New Mexico.

Those dismissed or pressured to resign in February included faculty members, a basketball coach, as well as security and maintenance staff. While the exact number of layoffs remained unclear as of Sunday, the cuts also impacted personnel at the Bureau of Indian Education’s central and regional offices. According to the Native American Rights Fund, which filed the lawsuit in federal court in Washington on Friday, some of the dismissed employees have been rehired, but many have not. The Bureau funds schools serving approximately 45,000 Native students across 23 states.

The lawsuit claims that the staffing reductions left numerous courses without instructors at both colleges. Additionally, the loss of essential support and maintenance staff led to deteriorating living conditions—students reported that dormitories quickly became overrun with trash, water from taps turned brown and undrinkable, dining halls failed to provide adequate meals, and frequent power outages disrupted studying.

“These firings were executed without foresight, disregarding students’ health and safety,” said Jacqueline De León, an attorney representing the tribes and students. “This is yet another chapter in a long history of neglect and disrespect. We are here to ensure it doesn’t continue.”

The lawsuit names the heads of the Department of the Interior, the Bureau of Indian Affairs, and the Office of Indian Education Programs as defendants.

Among the plaintiffs are the tribal nations of the Pueblo of Isleta, the Prairie Band Potawatomi Nation, and the Cheyenne and Arapaho Tribes, along with five students from the two affected colleges.

A spokesperson for the Interior Department, which oversees the Bureau of Indian Affairs and the Bureau of Indian Education, declined to comment on the pending litigation.

The U.S. government has a legally recognized duty—known as the federal Indian trust responsibility—to uphold its unique relationship with federally recognized tribes. This responsibility, affirmed by federal courts as early as 1831, includes obligations to respect tribal sovereignty, collaborate with tribes on policies and projects that impact them, and support their right to self-determination. The lawsuit argues that by failing to consult with tribes before implementing the layoffs, the government violated this trust obligation.

“For generations, the federal government has failed to provide adequate educational opportunities to Tribal students, despite its treaty commitments,” said Hershel Gorham, lieutenant governor of the Cheyenne and Arapaho Tribes. “The Bureau of Indian Education was finally making progress in addressing these shortcomings—only for these cuts to undo all that progress. These institutions are invaluable to our communities, and we refuse to stand by and watch them be dismantled.”

The U.S. government’s relationship with Native schools has been fraught with historical injustices. Over the past 150 years, hundreds of thousands of Native children were forcibly removed from their homes and placed in boarding schools designed to strip them of their cultural identity and assimilate them into non-Native society. Abuse and neglect were rampant at these institutions, and mass graves have been discovered at various sites across the country. One such burial site at Haskell contains more than 100 graves.

Federal funding for tribal schools has been on the decline since 2010, mirroring a drop in Native American and Alaska Native student enrollment. According to the Postsecondary National Policy Institute, a nonprofit research group, Native American and Alaska Native students made up less than 1 percent of all postsecondary enrollments in 2021, the most recent year for which data is available—making them the smallest ethnic group in U.S. higher education.