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Yahoo
04-04-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Tribal colleges win reprieve from federal staff cuts
The Science and Technology building on the campus of Southwestern Indian Polytechnic Institute in New Mexico, one of the tribal schools that lost federal funding. (Photographer Dennis Dye/courtesy USGS) After weeks of uncertainty, two tribal colleges have been told they can hire back all employees who were laid off as part of the Trump administration's deep cuts across the federal workforce in February, part of a judge's order restoring some federal employees whose positions were terminated. Haskell Indian Nations University in Kansas and Southwestern Indian Polytechnic Institute, widely known as SIPI, in New Mexico lost about 70 employees in mid-February amid widespread staffing cuts to federal agencies. While most of the nation's 37 tribal colleges and universities are chartered by American Indian tribes, Haskell and SIPI are not associated with individual tribes and are run by the federal government. This story about tribal colleges was produced by The Hechinger Report, a nonprofit, independent news organization focused on inequality and innovation in education. About 55 employees were laid off and 15 accepted offers to resign, according to a lawsuit filed last month by tribes and students. The colleges were forced to cancel or reconfigure a wide range of services, from sports and food service to financial aid and classes. In some cases, instructors were hired by other universities as adjuncts and then sent back to the tribal colleges to keep teaching. It was not clear this week when and if the workers would return, whether the employees who resigned would also be offered their jobs back, or if the government would allow colleges to fill vacancies. Both colleges said some employees had turned down the offers. The Bureau of Indian Education, which runs the colleges, declined to answer questions except to confirm the laid-off workers would be offered jobs with back pay to comply with a judge's order that the government reverse course on thousands of layoffs of probationary employees. But the agency also noted the jobs would be available 'as the White House pursues its appeals process,' indicating possible turmoil if an appeals court reinstates the layoffs. Both colleges said the bureau also has refused to answer most of their questions. SIPI leaders were told last week that the positions were being restored, said Adam Begaye, chairman of the SIPI Board of Regents. The 270-student college lost 21 employees, he said, four of whom decided to take early retirement. All but one of the remaining 17 agreed to return, Begaye said. The chaos has been difficult for those employees, he said, and the college is providing counseling. 'We want to make sure they have an easy adjustment, no matter what they've endured,' Begaye said. The chairman of Haskell's Board of Regents, Dalton Henry, said he was unsure how many of the 50 lost employees were returning. Like SIPI, Haskell was forced after the layoffs to shift job responsibilities and increase the workload for instructors and others. Haskell was reviewed by accreditors in December, and Henry said he was worried how the turmoil would affect the process. Colleges and universities must be accredited to offer federal and state financial aid and participate in most other publicly funded programs. Henry declined to discuss his thoughts on the chaos, saying there was nothing the college could do about it. 'Whatever guidance is provided, that's what we have to adhere to,' he said. 'It's a concern. But at this point, it's the federal government's decision.' The Bureau of Indian Affairs declined to make the presidents of the two colleges available for interviews. Tribal colleges and universities were established to comply with treaties and the federal trust responsibility, legally binding agreements in which the United States promised to fund Indigenous education and other needs. But college leaders argue the country has violated those contracts by consistently failing to fund the schools adequately. In the federal lawsuit claiming the Haskell and SIPI cuts were illegal, students and tribes argued the Bureau of Indian Education has long understaffed the colleges. The agency's 'well-documented and persistent inadequacies in operating its schools range from fiscal mismanagement to failure to provide adequate education to inhospitable buildings,' plaintiffs claimed. Sen. Jerry Moran and Rep. Tracey Mann, both Kansas Republicans, said before Trump took office that they plan to introduce a bill shifting Haskell from federal control to a congressional charter, which would protect the university from cuts across federal agencies such as the Bureau of Indian Education. '[F]or the last few years the university has been neglected and mismanaged by the Bureau of Indian Education,' Moran said in a written statement in December. 'The bureau has failed to protect students, respond to my congressional inquiries or meet the basic infrastructure needs of the school.' The February cuts brought rare public visibility to tribal colleges, most of which are in remote locations. Trump's executive orders spurred outrage from Indigenous communities and a flurry of national news attention. 'We're using this chaos as a blessing in disguise to make sure our family and friends in the community know what SIPI provides,' said Begaye, the SIPI board president. The uncertainty surrounding the colleges' funding has left a lasting mark, said Ahniwake Rose, president and CEO of the American Indian Higher Education Consortium, which advocates for tribal colleges. But she added she was proud of how the schools have weathered the cuts. 'Indian country is always one of the most resourceful and creative populations,' she said. 'We've always made do with less. I think you saw resilience and creativity from Haskell and SIPI.' Contact editor Christina A. Samuels at 212-678-3635 or samuels@
Yahoo
12-03-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Bureau of Indian Education tight-lipped after Haskell files federal lawsuit
The Bureau of Indian Education remains tight-lipped as conflicts at Haskell University begin to escalate. In light of a new federal lawsuit over the mid-February Haskell layoffs, BIE still won't comment. Pueblo of Isleta; Prairie Band Potawatomi Nation; Cheyenne and Arapaho Tribe; as well as students from Haskell University and Southwestern Indian Polytechnic Institute are suing Doug Burgum, secretary of the Interior Department; Bryan Mercier, assistant secretary of Indian Affairs; and BIE director Tony Dearman. This comes after about 20% of Southwestern Indian Polytechnic Institute's employees and Haskell's employees were laid off. Fourteen employees from Haskell were reinstated a couple weeks later. When The Capital-Journal reached out to BIE's media team, it declined to answer questions. This is the third time the Bureau has declined to discuss Haskell-related issues in the past week despite official media communications with Haskell staff being cut off. "The Department of the Interior reaffirms its unwavering commitment to providing BIE students with a quality and culturally appropriate education in a safe, healthy and supportive environment, while prioritizing fiscal responsibility for the American people, but Department policy is to not comment on litigation," a BIE spokesperson said in a written response. The lawsuit was filed March 7 in U.S. District Court in the District of Columbia and outlines the layoffs of 18 out of 92 employees at Southwestern Indian Polytechnic Institute employees and 37 of 179 at Haskell. The students in the lawsuit include individuals Ella Bowen, Haskell freshman and enrolled member of the Sault Ste. Marie Tribe of Chippewa Indians; Danielle Ledesma, Haskell sophomore and enrolled member of the Prairie Band of Potawatomi Nation; Victor Organista, Haskell sophomore and enrolled member of the Prairie Band of Potawatomi Nation; Aiyanna Tanyan, Haskell junior and enrolled member of the Seminole Nation of Oklahoma; and Kaiya Brown, SIPI first-year student and enrolled member of the Navaj Nation. In the lawsuit, one of the plaintiffs' biggest arguments is claiming BIE's failure to consult, which is required in the Department of Interior's polices. DOI's policy on consultation with Indian Tribes and Alaska Native Corporations, part 512 chapter 4 states 'consult with tribes on a government-to-government basis whenever DOI plans or actions have tribal implications' and further mandates that '(a)ll bureaus and offices shall comply with and participate in the consultation process in a manner that demonstrates a meaningful commitment and ensures continuity in the process.' The lawsuit also outlines the layoffs BIE faced and how it impacted BIE's ability to give proper oversight to Haskell and the Southwestern Indian Polytechnic Institute. About 22 BIE employees were fired and some of the positions they were terminated from included school safety specialists, fiscal auditors, financial analysts, accountants, human resource officers, management analysts and IT personnel, according to court documents. Government Accountability Office has repeatedly given recommendations to BIE to do better to adequately staff themselves. "Given the numerous GAO reports that have recommended additional BIE oversight and staffing, in particular in the fields of the laid off employees such as safety specialists and fiscal auditors, these losses set back BIE's progress," the lawsuit stated. The plaintiffs are asking for an injunction to bar the actions of BIE related to the layoffs, an injunction to prevent BIE from further layoffs, that the court require BIE to consult with Tribal leaders as is required in DOI policy and that the plaintiffs are awarded a fiscal award that aligns with the cost of the lawsuit and attorney fees. The Capital-Journal reached out to the office of U.S. Sen. Jerry Moran, R-Kansas, to get a comment, but a spokesperson said Moran wouldn't comment on the lawsuit or on whether he will support Haskell students' attempt to meet with President Donald Trump. This article originally appeared on Topeka Capital-Journal: Bureau of Indian Education mum after Haskell files federal lawsuit
New York Times
05-03-2025
- Politics
- New York Times
A Native University Is Losing a Quarter of Its Staff to Federal Cuts
The women's basketball coach stood atop a ladder on Sunday night, carefully cutting down the last of the net after Haskell Indian Nations University won the league championship. The scene is a familiar one at this time of year in college basketball. But the celebration in Lawrence, Kan., where the man who invented the sport worked for decades, was nevertheless astonishing: Officially, Haskell's coach, Adam Strom, was only a volunteer. He had been fired 16 days earlier, swept up in an executive order that led Haskell to oust about a quarter of its workers on a Friday in February. The only other federally run college for Native people, Southwestern Indian Polytechnic Institute in Albuquerque, also laid off a similar share of workers that day. More than 140 years after the United States first used the grounds in Lawrence as a boarding school to assimilate Native children, Haskell students feel that the federal government, which controls the university, has once again become a malevolent force upending lives. The student government association president said three of her five instructors had been dismissed. Rumors had swirled over whether enough dining hall workers were left to serve meals. A senior had wondered whether the university, a sanctum for Native American students shaped by tradition and tragedy, would remain open long enough for him to receive his degree. As other potential policy changes loom, students, leaders and experts fear that the federal system for educating Native Americans — which serves tens of thousands of students at Haskell and beyond, and which already has some of the worst outcomes in the United States — is lurching into a new phase of crisis. In President Trump's Washington, firings across the federal government have been billed as an 'optimization' of the bureaucracy. But on Haskell's campus, where at least 103 people are buried, the seemingly indiscriminate budget cuts represent another breach of the government's vows to Native Americans. 'We're not necessarily repeating the history of the school; it's just continuing in our own modern way,' said J'Den Nichols, a member of the Northern Cheyenne Tribe of Montana who is majoring in American Indian studies. As she spoke, less than a week before the conference championship game, a tepee stood near the student union in response to the cuts. 'We only bring that up in times of ceremony, or in times like now, where we are either mourning or attacked by others,' Tyler Moore, the senior and a citizen of the Cherokee Nation, said of the tepee. Haskell's president, Francis Arpan, referred an interview request to the Bureau of Indian Education, which declined to make any federal officials available. A spokesperson for the Interior Department, which includes the bureau, said in a one-sentence statement that the department 'reaffirms its unwavering commitment to the American public while practicing diligent fiscal responsibility.' Although the administration's quest to reduce federal spending has led campus officials across the country to weigh layoffs, hiring freezes and other steps, schools like Haskell are particularly vulnerable to disruptions since they are directly run by the government. And perhaps no education system in the United States is as familiar with upheaval and shattered promises than the one that provides federal schools for Native students. Almost a century after a major federal report about conditions for Native Americans warned that 'cheapness in education is expensive' because thriftiness in schools could deepen future societal problems, witnesses repeatedly told Congress in written testimony last week that the federal system for teaching Native people suffered from 'chronic underfunding.' About 45,000 children are enrolled in bureau-funded schools in 23 states, their options fashioned by court cases, laws and treaties. In addition to operating Haskell and SIPI — as the small college of about 200 in Albuquerque is known — the government financially supports tribal colleges and universities that are run independently. Although some measures of student success are improving, the high school graduation rate for Bureau of Indian Education schools regularly lags the nation's. In the 2020-21 school year, standardized tests showed that roughly one in 10 assessed students were proficient in math, and about 17 percent were proficient in language arts, according to the bureau. The system's colleges are also troubled. The most recently reported six-year graduation rate at Haskell was 43 percent; the national rate is usually around 62 percent. Dr. Arpan, congressional aides noted before a hearing last summer, was Haskell's eighth president in six years. And a 2023 Interior Department report, which emerged last year after the watchdog group Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility sued to obtain a redacted copy, depicted Haskell as 'severely dysfunctional.' The report concluded, in part, that the university had been insufficiently attentive to accusations of sexual assault, housed an athletic department 'in disarray' and used adjunct instructors 'inappropriately" while federal employees worked beyond their job descriptions. Last December, some congressional Republicans floated a new governance structure for Haskell that has drawn mixed reviews on campus and not yet cleared Capitol Hill. Despite their university's problems, one student after another said that Haskell was one of the few places in academia where they felt their culture was honored. Shrinking the university, they argued, was more than a violation of the government's promises; it was an assault on their heritages and futures. Angel Ahtone Elizarraras, the student government president, talked of how the library offered spiritual medicine and every dorm had a smudge room. ('If you ask anyone on campus, English isn't the coolest language we know,' Marina DeCora, a student who is a member of the Winnebago Tribe of Nebraska, said wryly.) Students frequently used the word 'family' to describe the community at Haskell, where they pay some fees but no tuition. This semester, the university reported an enrollment of 918 students representing 153 tribal nations. Shiannah Horned Eagle, a member of the Cheyenne River Sioux Tribe of South Dakota who is a social work student, said she started out at another college, but found it 'isolating.' She found solace at Haskell — and then learned of the cuts when an instructor told the class. 'Basically, they just told us they got fired and that they don't know what's going to happen to the classes,' she said. Ms. Ahtone Elizarraras was preparing for a Valentine's Day dance when she heard. 'As a Native, as you're at this school, you kind of read through the books, and it prepares you for moments like this,' said Ms. Ahtone Elizarraras, a citizen of the Wichita and Affiliated Tribes of Oklahoma, adding, 'It makes it to where you realize, 'Hey, my ancestors stepped so that I could walk.'' But there is also fury. 'How much more can you take?' Ms. DeCora fumed. Haskell's board of regents has appealed to Washington. In letters to federal officials, the advisory board's interim president, Dalton Henry, argued that the ousted employees should be reinstated because they were fulfilling duties that were mandatory under treaties. Last week, students protested outside the Kansas Capitol. Later in the week, Dr. Arpan told student government leaders about a reprieve that would allow ousted instructors to finish this semester as adjuncts. But that fix is, for now, only temporary. Among the university workers who have lost jobs are a photography instructor and custodians. On the morning of Feb. 14, there were rumors among some employees about coming cuts. Then Mr. Strom, who was in his fourth season as the women's basketball coach, was summoned to the athletic director's office. He figured he was in for a talking-to about sharing gym time with other teams. Instead, the athletic director told him he was out of a job. Mr. Strom, a member of the Yakama Nation, said he had been a contractor for his first three seasons. He was only recently hired full time as a federal employee, which meant he was still in his probationary period. 'I felt safe. I really did,' he said, adding, 'I thought being an educator was important in America.' Ahniwake Rose, a Cherokee Nation citizen who is the president of the American Indian Higher Education Consortium, said that the Trump administration should reverse the firings soon. Otherwise, she warned, there could be 'a trickle-down effect on long-term harm to these institutions' if students decided not to enroll because they feared for the universities' health. Tribe-controlled colleges, she said, were offering to send volunteer faculty and staff members in the meantime. Mr. Strom decided to stick around for the rest of the season and coach as a volunteer, only miles from where James Naismith, basketball's inventor, founded the University of Kansas' fabled men's team. The current Kansas coach, Bill Self, is the highest-paid college basketball coach in the United States. 'I really could paint that very ugly picture in that that coach is a white male, and I'm a minority, I'm a Native American,' Mr. Strom said in the gym complex, where four Native star quilts flank the American flag. He paused. 'At the same time, I'd rather be better than bitter.' On Sunday, the now-volunteer coach and his team won the conference title, securing a spot in the National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics national championship tournament. But instead of recruiting for next season or spending as many hours preparing for games, Mr. Strom has been searching for jobs, hoping he will find a coaching gig someplace else. Students are also worrying about the way forward for their lives and their campus, even though events like graduation remain on track. 'I know there's going to be a day where this is talked about in history books,' said Mr. Moore, who was chosen as this year's Haskell Brave, one of the university's highest honors, adding, 'I'm just sad that I'm living through it today.'
Yahoo
18-02-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
'Devastated and heartbroken': Federal layoffs could force Haskell, SIPI to close
Jourdan Bennett-Begaye and Kevin AbourezkICTHaskell Indian Nations University and Southwestern Indian Polytechnic Institute are considering closing their doors after federal layoffs and resignations gutted their staffing, officials familiar with the matter confirmed Monday to — an historic tribal university in Kansas that is the oldest continually operating federal school for Native people — lost nearly 40 employees out of 180 after the Trump administration ordered nationwide layoffs Friday of probationary federal SIPI, in New Mexico, approximately 20 employees were laid off Friday out of the institute's 100 employees, leaving about 80 employees to run the school of about 200 students for the current trimester, sources told INDIGENOUS JOURNALISM. Numbers for staff members who took the additional 'Fork in the Road' deferred resignation option from the Trump administration are Yellowman, Navajo, who was vice president of operations at Southwestern Indian Polytechnic Institute until she was laid off Friday, said the sharp cuts are devastating for the school.'It's detrimental because on Tuesday, our students are going to say, 'Where's my instructor?' 'What happened to my class?' 'What's going on?' 'Is my future of being a student okay here?' 'Where's my tutor?' 'What happened to this person?' 'Are my scholarships in jeopardy?' 'Is my financial aid in jeopardy?'' Yellowman told ICT Saturday. 'One of our departments was literally left with just one person,' she said. Haskell and SIPI are the only post-secondary institutions controlled by the Bureau of Indian Education through the Bureau of Indian Affairs, which is under the Department of the are also part of a land-grant university system that dates back to 1862. Federal legislation in 1994 designated more than a dozen tribal colleges and universities land-grant institutions, and most tribal colleges and universities now operate with that designation. The cuts to both schools are part of thousands of layoffs wider federal layoffs ordered by the Trump administration through the Office of Personnel Management. The abrupt dismissal of probationary federal workers included thousands at the BIE, the BIA, the Department of the Interior and the Department of attempts to lay off more than 2,000 workers at the Indian Health Service were rescinded late Friday by newly confirmed Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. in what was described as a temporary BIE lost nearly 85 employees, an increase from the losses expected on Friday, sources told ICT Sunday. Among those laid off were nearly 30 from non-school positions in the BIE agency offices, excluding kindergarten through 12th grade told ICT that Haskell would likely not close immediately but that the option is on the table. About half of the 40 employees laid off had worked directly with layoffs leave the school with about a 25 percent reduction in its workforce, which already was lower than in 2022, when the school had 250 fewer students. Haskell averages about 1,000 students a semester, according to the school's data online. The tribal university could face loss of accreditation, a source told ICT. The best-case scenario would be for Haskell to cancel approximately a dozen courses, since about 15 employees dealt directly with students, sources layoffs left students and staff in turmoil at both Indian Nations University'I wasn't expecting it,' said Sierra Two Bulls, Oglala Lakota, a social work lecturer at Haskell who was laid off Friday. 'I felt so devastated and heartbroken.'Haskell Indian Nations University was founded in 1884 as the United States Indian Industrial Training School, part of the federal government's assimilation policies. The school was renamed to Haskell Institute after Kansas Rep. Dudley Haskell. In the 1970s, the school became Haskell Indian Junior College then Haskell Indian Nations University in the is most notably known for its alumni, who include Olympic gold medalist and runner Billy Mills and legendary Olympian Jim Thorpe. Haskell had 984 students registered for the Fall 2024 semester, and all students are members of nearly 150 federally recognized tribes. Two Bulls – a 2014 alumnus of Haskell – said she was in her office on campus shortly before 2 p.m. Central Friday when her supervisor stopped by her office and informed her that she was being laid off, along with all other probationary staff and faculty, including six other instructors.'I immediately went into shock,' she immediately walked to another building to tape a sheet of paper to the door of her classroom to inform her students that her class was canceled due to an 'emergency.' After finishing her grading, she walked to the administrative building to turn in her professional items, including her then walked with her personal belongings to her car.'I got in my car, and I just started crying,' she said. 'It just hit me.'The 34-year-old said she suffers from a chronic illness and depends on her health insurance to cover her medical costs. She said she also worries about those of her students who are planning to graduate this spring who needed her class to complete their said some student extracurricular clubs have lost their faculty sponsors, and that the university likely will struggle to continue to operate considering the many staff members – cafeteria, maintenance, housing, and student support workers – who have lost their she said, she doesn't know what she'll do next. Many other social workers in her community have also lost their jobs because of budget cuts within nonprofits that relied heavily on federal funding that is now she remains hopeful.'As Lakota people, we're resilient,' she said. 'You get the rug pulled beneath you, you get back up.'The layoffs came as U.S. Sen. Jerry Moran and Rep. Tracey Mann of Kansas were working on legislation that would remove Haskell from BIE oversight. Moran spoke on the Senate floor on Jan. 10. 'We should not allow Haskell – a cornerstone of Native American higher education – to become another promise we fail to keep,' Moran said. 'The students who walk through the doors at Haskell deserve better than the inefficiency and mismanagement and neglect they face under the current governance system.'Moran and Kansas released the draft legislation in December 2024. Haskell has faced other problems in recent July 2024, then-Haskell President Ronald Graham appeared at a hearing before members of two U.S. House committees to respond to a 2023 BIE report that included student allegations of sexual assault, bullying, nepotism and retaliation. Congressional leaders warned the university's leadership and the BIE to improve the university's treatment of its students.'It's really frustrating when you hear that we need to do better, but then the government turns around and gets rid of 20 to 30 percent of our employees here,' said Garret Elliott, an Indigenous and American Indian Studies student at 33-year-old Wyandotte Nation of Oklahoma citizen said he learned of the layoffs while working at the campus library Friday afternoon.'I started noticing people within the library who have offices there returning their books,' he said. 'At first it was pain, shock and sadness. I did a lot of crying, then it really turned into anger at that point, because it started hitting me that (what) if this is only the beginning?'He said he hasn't been paid for weeks as a student worker and has yet to receive his financial aid for the semester, a situation that many other students have reported experiencing. And he said he questions whether the university can continue to operate after losing so many employees.'I'm afraid that we're going to lose enrollment, which I believe is exactly what they intend because they want this place to shut down. … I am already preparing for something that to me feels inevitable,' he said, adding that he's begun looking for a storage unit for his said most of the university's library staff, except the librarian, and nearly all of its success coaches, were laid off. In addition, the school lost nearly its entire maintenance department.'We're a small campus, but it's big enough that we need more than one maintenance worker,' he university's art department was hit especially hard.'The art department is essentially non-existent at this point,' Elliott said students plan to meet and share their concerns with university President Frank Arpan on Tuesday and also have created a Facebook page, which they are using to organize a protest either at the state Capitol in Topeka or in front of the offices of Kansas' congressional representatives later this said students have begun contacting alumni and tribal leaders to try to find emergency funds to keep the school said Haskell is a place where students from tribes across the nation make lifelong connections and connect to their Indigenous cultures and history.'I feel more seen and heard when we're around each other, and I just don't want any of that to become diminished,' he Haswood, a former Kansas state legislator and 2014 Haskell alum, said she has been worried about how the Trump administration's efforts to slash government spending and the federal workforce would impact Indian Diné woman said she hopes Native leaders will work to educate the new administration about the federal government's trust responsibility to tribal nations.'It seems like a lot of things are really up in the air,' she said. 'I am angry. I am very sad.'Haswood said the outpouring of support for Haskell online in recent days demonstrates how important it is to Indian Country.'There's energy there,' she said. 'There's a desire for voicing our concerns and to try and convince this administration that Indigenous education is important.'She said doesn't entertain much hope that the Trump administration will respond favorably.'They have not shown any support to uphold treaties and put that best foot forward to work with Indian Country,' Haswood plans to postpone its annual Welcome Back Powwow, originally scheduled for Saturday, Feb. Indian Polytechnic InstituteTwo senior administrators at the Southwestern Indian Polytechnic Institute in Albuquerque struggled through their had been asked to read a script laying off about 20 instructors, tutors, a vice president of college operations and a grants director, as ordered by the Trump administration.'They were in tears,' said Thomas De Pree, the sole environmental instructor for the institute who was among those laid off. 'They had a written printout that they were told to read for us, and they could barely get the words off the page because it made them so upset [at] what they were being forced to tell us.'They made it very clear that SIPI did not want to let us go, and that these were orders from above.'The staff was given two hours to clear out their offices, De Pree said, along with filling out exit paperwork and turning in their keys. 'We did not receive any official documentation that we've been let go or terminated. We aren't even sure what the circumstances of the termination are,' De Pree told ICT. Only that it was 'effective immediately.' SIPI was created by the All Pueblos Council of Governors and other tribes in the area in 1971 to provide technical and higher education to Native American and Alaska Native students. All Pueblos Council of Governors did not respond to a request for comment from school, which this trimester has approximately 200 students and represented 120 tribes, built partnerships with four-year universities in the state, including the University of New Mexico, New Mexico State University and New Mexico Highlands University. Los Alamos National Laboratory and Sandia National Laboratories in New Mexico — both federal government laboratories focused on national security, artificial intelligence and more — also partnered with the school under the Department of Energy's Minority Serving Institution Partnership Program, which helps students build career paths in the technical workforce. Yellowman, the former vice president of operations, would have celebrated three years at the technical college in March. She said that some people who were laid off were on leave, lunch, or just coming in for duty. Yellowman sat in on the first preparation meeting as part of the team to give notice of the SIPI layoffs. She would help them exit. 'As we were preparing to exit, even in those conversations, there was very limited conversation about process, list selection. We didn't know who was on the list. We didn't know how they were [selected]. All we were shared with was that possibly veterans wouldn't be on this list,' Yellowman said. 'Then I learned in the group that I was on the list.'She excused herself to process the situation, called family members, packed her personal belongings in her office, consoled her colleagues and left in an hour. She didn't even go through with the formal meeting of being let go like the others. 'People were crying, people were shocked, people were off work, people were at lunch. People were not on duty, but coming in later on, in the afternoon. I just don't think that we had the capacity to respond,' she said. 'Think of your own workplace right now. Do you have the capacity and the resources to let go 30 percent of your workforce within an hour? It's pretty detrimental,' she oversaw security, finance, budget management, information technology, and facilities and maintenance. She also had a helping hand in performance evaluations and human resources, and coordinated the Summer Bridge program, a program designed to help high school, GED or HSET students transition to college last week, on Tuesday, she pulled a 12-hour shift, 8 a.m. to 8 p.m., to make sure the school was up and running. 'While the instructors taught, I kept the lights on, payroll and dealt with staff behaviors and conduct,' she wrote on Facebook after she was let go. She now also has to think about providing for her children and family as the head of the household. She said sharing the news with her family was 'pretty hard.' Other SIPI workers who wished to stay anonymous also shared their experiences with ICT. 'As a now former federal employee who was fired Friday for NO REASON, I disagree that my salary was 'wasted money,'" one person wrote. 'My agency/college was tragically understaffed and underfunded before these unilateral terminations, as is the case for most agencies were predominantly funded by grants, so very little federal money supported us. All this project does is increase unemployment rates, increases potential homelessness, threatens tribal treaties and will devastate the economy. Hundreds of thousands of people are without jobs right now and can't afford to live without their income. We are emotionally and financially devastated. We took these positions to SERVE the American people (aka YOU).'The worker continued, ''I was given NO NOTICE. We were told by college leadership last week that we would likely be unaffected by these termination plans, as the college is "forward funded" through June, and that bureau leadership was working on prevention measures and exemptions. We 'should' be exempt... or at least protected through June. Instead I was given 2 hours to clean out my office... With no severance... In the middle of a pay period... In the middle of the month... On a Friday afternoon... On a holiday weekend. I haven't even received a written notice. I was told in a GROUP MEETING that I was not being laid off but terminated effective immediately.'The worker is now worried about how to support the family.'I'm now in danger of losing my home,' the worker said. 'I can't support my family. I only have 2 weeks to find a job so I can prevent eviction because I won't have the money to pay my March rent. I'll be charged early lease termination fees and potentially court costs for breaking my lease if I have to move. My level of education and experience will make it nearly impossible to find a job, especially one that will pay what I'm worth or even what I need to survive. It took me almost 3 years to find this one. So, thanks…'Another SIPI worker initially applied at the institute to help students.'It was out of a desire to do something more directly impactful than the research I had been doing at a national lab,' the worker said. 'It meant taking a significant pay cut and shifting the course of my career, but it was a choice made with purpose. I did not expect that, just a few months after I started at SIPI, our government would go to great lengths to first demonize the federal workforce and then begin firing employees arbitrarily, seemingly motivated, at least in part, by cruelty.'The students at SIPI are brilliant,' the worker said. 'They come from backgrounds that are often shaped by many difficulties, the result of centuries of mistreatment and systemic inequity, a word we can no longer even say in the federal government. Still, they chose college because they wanted better lives for themselves and their worker said SIP has always been underfunded.'For years, we have needed new dorms, classrooms, and equipment,' the worker said. 'And yesterday, despite the fact that SIPI is forward funded through Congress until June 30, 2025, about 20 probationary employees were fired without cause. Because apparently, an unelected monster, who doesn't even know we exist, unilaterally decided that the little funding we had was still too much. This will cripple the school, if not destroy it.' Our stories are worth telling. Our stories are worth sharing. Our stories are worth your support. Contribute today to help ICT carry out its critical mission. Sign up for ICT's free newsletter.
