Federal funding for education has been a recent target in the Trump administration鈥檚 quest to trim government costs. But the cuts haven鈥檛 just been happening at the Department of Education 鈥� they鈥檙e also happening at the Bureau of Indian Education.
The Bureau of Indian Education 鈥� which is under the Department of the Interior 鈥� funds schools that serve Indigenous students at reservations around the United States and operates two colleges. After a recent round of cuts, the filed a lawsuit challenging the Trump administration鈥檚 efforts.
The nonprofit, based in Colorado, argued in ., that laying off teachers and other school personnel at the colleges and reducing funding overall is a violation of long-standing treaties between tribes and the U.S. government. Native American Rights Fund senior staff attorney Jacqueline De Le贸n is leading the legal effort.
鈥淭he federal government has an ongoing treaty obligation to provide education to Native students and that includes post-secondary education,鈥� said De Le贸n, an enrolled member of the Isleta Pueblo tribe.
De Le贸n said these changes were made without input from tribes. They included layoffs of about a quarter of the staff at Haskell Indian Nations University in Kansas and Southwestern Indian Polytechnic Institute in New Mexico, the two schools represented in the lawsuit. When funding was cut for the Bureau of Indian Education, that led to the layoffs. Those changes at the colleges, De Le贸n said, with some showing up to classes that had no instructor, trash piling up because there were no custodians, occasional power outages, closed student centers, and delayed financial aid.
The biggest issue is that these changes were made without warning.
鈥淭he federal government has to consult with tribes before they make changes to education, including to staffing and they have a responsibility to fulfill those education requirements separate and apart from policy decisions or politics.鈥� De Le贸n said. 鈥淔ederal law requires certain steps to be taken before there are changes in Native American education, which again are enacted in fulfillment of treaty obligations.鈥�
De Le贸n said a ruling could affect schools across the of 37 tribal institutions across the country, including those that serve students in . That includes Din茅 College in Arizona, the Institute of American Indian Arts and Navajo Technical University in New Mexico, and Salish Kootenai College in Montana.
Doug Bergum, the Department of Interior secretary, is named as athe defendant in the suit and has not yet filed a response, according to court filings.
This story was produced by the Mountain West News Bureau, a collaboration between Wyoming Public Media, Nevada Public Radio (KNPR) in Las Vegas, Boise State Public Radio in Idaho, KUNR in Nevada, 萝莉少女 in Colorado and KANW in New Mexico, with support from affiliate stations across the region. Funding for the Mountain West News Bureau is provided in part by the .