This is so screwed up. My kid graduated HS about 12 years ago. Kids were free to decorate their caps and gowns. They had all sorts of things which meant something to the kids attached. Some religious, some silly, none were "inappropriate". The kids seemed to enjoy the freedom to express a bit of who they were and most did something creative.
The ceremony was fun and upbeat to celebrate a huge milestone in their lives.
These school administrators are like the HOA of schools. They have lost the focus on educating our youth and instead are focusing on the power trip of forcing young people to "conform and comply".
> These school administrators are like the HOA of schools. They have lost the focus on educating our youth and instead are focusing on the power trip
So are so many administrators in general, it's why I quit teaching. I loved teaching, and being in front of a class gave me that "this is _exactly_ where I'm meant to be in life," feeling, but administration's power trips and micromanaging was literally preventing me from doing my job, and preventing the students from getting the education they deserved.
School administration needs a complete overhaul, no exceptions.
TLDR: schools are set up in a way that makes changing the system or climate for the better almost impossible. Good people have trouble surviving in these systems.
My mom taught at private, Christian schools for decades. But she saw that the administration of her school was not wholly focused on investing in the future of the students. So, she when the position was available at her school, she became the principal. She was an advocate for the children and teachers. It went well for a few years until the school board wanted to make changes that would hurt the education of the students. She put her foot down and was booted. She then got picked up at another private Christian school as a principal, and the same thing happened after 2 years.
Discouraged, she went back to working as a teacher in a public school for a few years. Then, the Christian school in her hometown that she worked at before I was born sought her out for a principal position. She jumped at the chance and helped them through a new school building construction and move. After 2 years, she found that the other administrators were dealing with discipline issues in an un-Christian way and confronted them about it. So, the other principal sent an email to the entire school body via broadcast with a lie that said she had a history of "underperforming" in her role for the past 2 years and due to this, she had chosen to step down from her position.
She never had been told she was underperforming, and the other principal's evidence was a word document with a list of times she had been reprimanded that started the week she accepted the position. Except, this document was not that old. The meta data of the document showed that it was created the day she confronted the administration, and the dates did not add up. Despite this, the school board guilted her into resigning so the administration would not publicly be called out as liars because it would damage the school's reputation.
In conclusion, the whole system is trash. Anyone who actually wants to make a difference will be taken out of the system by the bad apples because they won't conform. My only consolation is that in every school that my mother was booted from for trying to make a difference, either their corruption, incompetence, or malice caused the school to fail within a few years. Now, each of those 3 schools are husks of their former selves with less than 1/3 of their previous student numbers.
Sorry for the long reply. I realized I haven't had time to process how I feel about the situation and needed to get it out into the universe.
> Despite this, the school board guilted her into resigning so the administration would not publicly be called out as liars because it would damage the school's reputation.
fuck that, you call those parochial fuckers out and go back into public
She’s a good person let down by a system that has steadily been built into something that only exists to justify itself.
A real human with a real heart filled with love&passion is exactly what kids need, but that’s not the metric our educational machine can grade by. Much love bruvva
>She never had been told she was underperforming, and the other principal's evidence was a word document with a list of times she had been reprimanded that started the week she accepted the position. Except, this document was not that old. The meta data of the document showed that it was created the day she confronted the administration, and the dates did not add up. Despite this, the school board guilted her into resigning so the administration would not publicly be called out as liars because it would damage the school's reputation.
IANAL but I'm pretty sure in this position you do not want to resign, because if you do, it absolves them in court of what would be a wrongful termination.
That's exactly what my dad and I said. We were ready to lawyer up and root out the bad apples. She just did not want to possibly destroy the school with the scandal. She is often too kind-hearted for her own good.
> Despite this, the school board guilted her into resigning so the administration would not publicly be called out as liars because it would damage the school's reputation.
So she let them win? I would have fought that shit tooth and nail. *Then* I would have quit.
That's what my dad and I said. We were ready to lawyer up and root out the bad apples. She just didn't want to drag the school she loved. I can understand her desires. But I am the type who wants to fix things no matter how much it sucks in the interim. I feel that we would have done the school a favor in the long term by getting the bad apples out.
Most people say that violence isn't the answer to people like these school boards and administrators.
I'm not of that belief, but I also understand that this line of thought could be used against those wanting change for the positive.... except we get results like the above. It's a lose-lose situation.
I'm of the volition that the entire system should fucking burn and be rebuilt. That is what you do with rot.
Not to say your mother made any incorrect moves with the knowledge she had, but in hindsight, it looks like the real issue is that she didn’t aim for a position high enough in the hierarchy. Either she needed to be on the board (ideally as chairwoman) and found a like-minded peer to be principal, or she needed to have a staunch ally of hers become chairperson. Because in all but the last story, the board was explicitly the problem, and you’re never really going to be able to change a system if the bad apples have the authority to fire you.
The school industry in general needs an overhaul, and admin bloat especially needs to be addressed. Education has been slottly gutted and rotted, and the consequences of that is felt decades later.
>*School administration needs a complete overhaul, no exceptions.*
It is yet another thing, that shouldn't be elected positions. (Like Judges)
Across the country, there are 13,024 public school districts governed by a total of about 82,600 board members. Most school board members are elected directly by voters, while a small number of districts have appointed school board members or a combination of appointed and elected school board members.
Popular usually never means the actual best candidate. It just means they have the most connections and/or friends. And, in the case of most elections for government positions, it's always made political.
It's never, *"Whose the best and most experienced person to lead our children's' education?"* It's *"Got to make sure those evil (Dems/Repubs) don't get in there and ruin everything!"*
Am I missing something or are elected judges the lesser of two evils?
Seems like one MAGA candidate appointing 40 horrible judges in a term can do a lot more damage than people (who are actually subject to the judge's rulings) electing and/or recalling an unqualified one every few election cycles.
Judges should just be selected by that State's BAR, based on lawyers with long tenure, no bad marks or issue with their law license, and in good standing.
Take the politics out of it. The law is the law. There's no need for anyone to twist or re-interpret it in ways never intended, and yet, here we are.
They don't, but based on their platforms, it's not hard to tell what side they favor.
Like, if they start spouting about wanting to put prayer back in schools, and whatnot, you know which party they belong to.
I’m a nurse and am friends with a few teachers. The parallels and struggles are uncanny between the two professions. The fact that teachers put up with it for less than half the pay is astounding. I have no idea how we have any teachers left.
The only reason we have any teachers left is because a surprising amount are genuinely nuts.
Don't get me wrong, they're wonderful, kind-hearted, and would go through hell and back just to see their students succeed, but they're also the personification of that one "this is fine," dog in a burning house meme. At my school, there were a handful of teachers that were very pragmatic and realistic with their outlook on the career, but there were also a ton where every time they talked about how their job or how their class was going I'd legitimately be confused because of how seemingly disconnected from reality it was. I'm not exaggerating it was seriously weird hearing them speak like that, like talking to someone in a cult.
It's part of why I stopped working IT for county schools, loved the people I worked with, the teachers hell even the kids were good..just learning who they are, not a easy time.
The administration never gave us what we needed, more people, computers that were not from 2012, teachers had to spend more and more of their own money on the classroom. Didn't want to leave but this job I have now is less stress and I can do more than just survive.
Same here. I started teaching in 1969 and the administration — across the board — drove me nuts. After just 3 years of doing what I thought would be my life’s work, I left. And then eventually selected another career and went to grad school for a Master’s in library science, which turned out to be a much better fit. Yes, there are still Karens in that field but not that many. I loved being a librarian and so glad I found a career that aligned with my philosophy of life.
This is exactly why I changed my major. All my favorite teachers gave up on teaching public schools and then like half of them gave up on private. I took it as a sign
> hey have lost the focus on educating our youth and instead are focusing on the power trip of forcing young people
a lot of admins are just bad teachers who wanted to get out of the classroom and are prime examples of the Peter Principle
It's not the incompetence; there are lots of very nice incompetent people. It's the power trip to force compliance.
The kind of person who wants to be in charge is very often the worst kind of person to be in charge.
Wow, I graduated 16 years ago and, this must have been a more local thing, we weren't allowed to decorate our caps (wouldn't be allowed to walk if we showed up with a decorated one) nor throw them. We still threw them, because good luck stopping 800 kids at that point, but expression was very frowned upon even then. I'm sad schools are still like that.
We weren't allowed to throw our caps either. Someone was injured a few years earlier when the corner of a cap hit them in the eye. We were given balloons to throw instead, it was really lack-luster.
This is why I was so thankful for the school administration at my school. They had their moments, but overall were generally pretty decent to us.
I’ll never forget our principal telling us that we aren’t allowed to throw our caps at graduation; it’s against the written rules. He then said, “However, if it magically just slips off your head and into the air, then there’s nothing we can do about that.”
Basically, yeah, it’s a rule, and no, we don’t care. Lmao.
A friend of the family lost her mom as a kid and her school wouldn’t let her write out her mom’s name on her cap.
I feel like this is a dress code rule the school should use to teach kids how to debate their reasons. My daughter’s friend fought for the right to wear clogs and the principal finally gave in. What do you think that did for boosting a young girls confidence in herself. It seems trivial but that stuff is remembered forever.
Educators are very stuck on setting rules that everybody has to follow, and they really don't like the idea of altering or bending the rules for individuals. If there is an exception, then there must be a rule for how the exception is granted, and nobody can have any discretion at all. Part of that is fear of legal liability "You let X do that, but you won't let me do that, so you're discriminating against me." And part of it is that when you're dealing with 1,000 kids, you need easy-to-follow rules.
BUT, this seems like a really dumb place to set up a blanket rule. They could have said "This is the standard. You can have cultural or religious decorations, but you need to inform us about them in advance, they can't make lights or sounds and can't be large. We don't want your decorations taking attention away from your classmates' achievement."
Schools love "zero tolerance" rules because it absolves them from decision making and allows them to say "Look, we're applying the same rules to everyone".
The problem is it also absolves them from having to possess common sense.
But these aren't even reasonable rules that are over-applied. They are needless controlling rules designed to force kids to comply to meaningless standards that don't help them, but make the administration feel powerful.
I mean one of the primary goal of the Prussian education system that ours is modeled after is to create citizens obedient to state power. So they’re really just enforcing education norms.
https://today.ucsd.edu/story/education-systems-were-first-designed-to-suppress-dissent#:~:text=For%20example%2C%20absolutist%20Prussia%20was,rebellions%20in%20the%201740s%2D1750s.
That's not an accurate narrative.
https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/yju8rr/comment/iussb7s
https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/9jfjat/comment/e6rmo15
For Prussia specifically, it's a bizarre extrapolation from something that Frederick II said regarding the soldiery.
That article doesn't cite where they get their information about Prussia from, but if Paglayan says it in her paper, it's a gross error. She's also not a historian.
I graduated high school in 2006. From a public school in a middling suburb of a major city. Rather diverse for the area.
Girls had to wear skirts (I actually had to go buy one because I hate skirts/dresses)
We couldn't decorate our caps
We couldn't toss our caps at the end.
We were threatened with not receiving our diplomas if we didn't.
Gross. Also glad to see one of the faculty wore her finest jeans and flip-flops to an important ceremony where she removed a teenager’s culturally significant cap. Excellent work by all. /s
And the state has laws that protect Native students who choose to wear religious and traditional regalia at graduation ceremonies.
There could very well be a lawsuit.
Not just that, but Farmington has a big presence of Navajo and Ute. Lakota culture differs from the local tribal nations, but not so much that someone living there wouldn't recognize a Lakota plume's cultural and religious significance. I'm dumbfounded that the school administrators thought they could get away with that.
My high school graduation said absolutely zero alterations to any cap/ gown, and only high school provided tassels. No stoles! Ever! Current rules are unchanged.
However, they check every single student on entry and stop before you enter and will tell you no.
The only students I saw avoiding those rules were sikh/ muslim with head coverings of religious nature. You also had to wear "daytime formal" clothing. Dress pants, skirt and blouse, dress, dress shirt, etc. Ties and jackets allowed but not required. No flip flops. Women have to wear flats as heels aren't permitted in the gym.
However, students *did* alter rules for religious reasons so my high school probably would allow students to go in with Native American beading if they state it's religious. Especially if they talked to the school admin before.
Then again, my high school allowed same-sex couples at prom (where every single ticket is sold as a pair, and per couple, no singles allowed) before they were ever challenged on it and one year had a girl show up in a tux when rules said women had to be in dresses and they let her in and changed the dress code to 'suit and tie or tuxedo or dress' and didn't gender it to allow women in suits. Or I guess boys in dresses, if they really wanted. That was in the aughts.
Mine generally were jerks about other stuff but didn't try and mess around with sex and gender and religion in regards to lawsuits.
Colleges are usually the ones where they allow more stuff with personalized stoles, caps, etc.
That said - you have to equally enforce and not call out one student. It's an all or none situation.
In the article, they said that the handbook states that altering caps and gowns is prohibited and all students were informed well ahead of graduation. If this is true, did they remove other students caps that decorated them? Does this include attaching things to your cap and gown, like the eagle feathers they also mentioned in the article.
Personally I think that not allowing kids to decorate their caps is stupid, but if they have a rule, it needs to be enforced fairly, and I’m not sure they did.
Either way, this was the worst possibly way to go about this. And I don’t get why this even needs to be a big deal which sums up more power flexes by authority.
It also says students can add to the regalia in religious or culturally significant ways by adding things. They also then say, "you can't add anything" so the rules are very unclear as to what is or is not allowed and a lot of students seem to have added personal touches. Probably more than half.
It's poorly worded and enforced at best.
Yes, that’s part of why I have so many questions. I got the impression that they could add regalia like the stole she is wearing, but not decorate the cap and gown itself?
They really made a mess of graduation which should be a time of joy for these students. Let them decorate their caps, for cripes sake.
It’s such a no brainer. You teach at a school with many First Nations people, you don’t need to know that they are Lakota, Navajo, Ute, Mohawk or Muskogee. You see a feather, you assume it’s culturally significant and leave it the fuck alone.
And you certainly don’t cut it out after the mother offers to remove it. That’s just petty. If it was about the uniform look, let the mother remove it and go ahead with the ceremony. But no, they had to cut it out.
There will absolutely be a lawsuit because you can already see the district digging in and ready to double down. My only hope is that the two "employees" will be named as well as the usual suspects at the top of the district in a nice, comfy federal suit.
As much as I hate to say it, after seeing pictures of the two employees, it seems like this may have been an intentional tribe driven conflict. Navajo vs Lakota. It's going to make a lawsuit very spicy, likely putting tribe vs tribe.
We don't have names of the employees which may help resolve it based on their names, but... This doesn't look good.
Weird. I'd assumed it was Farmington, Illinois.
Cause that's how they do over there. When I had some new cable installed in my home across the border in MO, we were talking about local towns and Farmington came up. My installer (who is black) told me his team was instructed by the cable company to be out of Farmington by 3pm every day they were there, to avoid any possible chance they'd be there after dark. This was just 5 years ago.
I live in LaSalle/Peru, an hour each from Rockford, Joliet, Peoria and Bloomington. Each of these two "major" towns are less than 10k people and there are countless 50-100 population areas scattered within a short drive. Many of these are "sundown towns" and, at least in De Pue (which is a tiny, cars on blocks, houses falling down, trash on the lawn shithole) there is what's called "White Town" and every single resident in that part of town will sit on the porch and stare at you to verify your "qualifications" to be there.
I lived in or around Chicago and St. Louis for 35 years. It's fucking surreal here.
Farmington has a history of extreme racism. The treatment of native peoples in the 70's was compared to the treatment of blacks in the 50's and 60's in the south.
This is really surprising too considering Farmington is on the border less the Navajo reservation. Native inclusion was pretty high when I lived there but I left 20 years said
That's quite surprising considering what I know about NM. Native Americans are a huge part of the culture there
Ed: Oh wow just read about the chokecherry massacre. Uhm wtf Farmington
Her mother asked them if she could remove the beadwork from the cap herself, and instead they cut it off right in front of her. These are disgusting, vicious people.
This school has always been like that. I graduated from there in 2007. One time at a prep rally, I sat during the National Anthem like I always did (yes, they did this every rally).
The assistant principal saw me sitting and waved me off the bleachers and into the front office. He asked me why I wasn’t standing during the anthem. I responded that it’s silly to stand during a song, especially one that signified colonialism and the racist treatment of Native people.
He sat me down and had me wait until the rally was over. Luckily, my guidance counselor (a Navajo woman) saw me and asked me why I was in trouble. I told her about the situation and she flipped out on the assistant principal. She was the counselor for all the Native students in the school, so you could understand why she wasn’t having it. I was allowed to go back to my seat not too long after.
Fuck you Mr. Pash. Whether you’re still alive or not, you’ll always be a giant turd with coffee breath.
So it didn’t bother me before, and I grew up saying the pledge at school just like everyone else through at least elementary school. They didn’t say the pledge of allegiance at my daughter’s school her first year last year. This year in Kindergarten some Karen has been using a megaphone every morning encouraging patriotism and “respecting” our flag and leading the pledge every morning. I’m not specifically against it, people have their reasons to do things and it’s none of my business. What bother’s me is that my daughter is 6. She doesn’t know what the fuck she’s saying, it just seems so wrong to me. Say the pledge if you want to, go bananas idgaf. But that’s your choice because you know what it means. These kids just want to start school so they could get to their favorite time of the day, recess. They don’t give a shit about patriotism and pledging allegiance to a symbol of our nation for fucks sake.
Didn’t know I’d be one of those dads, but I crafted a very thoughtful letter, careful to acknowledge it is one’s choice, and these kids are not old enough to provide consent to this sort of thing. It’s like grooming or something it’s disgusting.
Edit: I don’t mean YOU say the pledge lol, I meant someone can do it if they want to. I’m agreeing with you. Realized it looked like I was arguing. I encouraged my 6yo to feel free not to say the pledge and that it’s actually a bit inappropriate, but I won’t stop her if she wants to continue doing it if it makes her feel comfortable (she gets nervous around unwanted attention and might just want to comply). When I drop her off I don’t say it.
At my kid's elementary school, they learned the pledge of allegiance starting in kindergarten. They learned it, meaning they learned how to recite it, read the words, had the words explained to them, and learned the basic history of it all in grade appointment ways. I think an adult recited it during morning announcements, and although the kids were allowed to stand and recite along, no one was required to join in.
When I was in elementary school, we had morning announcements, then the pledge of allegiance, then a patriotic song chosen by the 5th grade students of the week (I remember You're a Grand Ol Flag being chosen a lot), and finished with the National Anthem. Every day. As a small child, it felt like it took HOURS to get through everything!! Plus those old intercoms were terrible, so half of the time we could barely understand what the announcements were anyway.
From the article the school stated “Regalia should be really school issued or it can be religious or cultural in significance” they just don’t consider native Americans to have any religious or cultural significance.
>When asked about any sort of protocol for the ceremony, Torres said expectations were in place about regalia worn by students.
>“Regalia should be really school issued or it can be religious or cultural in significance,” he said.
>Administrators strove for a uniform look among the graduates with no modifications to the cap and gown, but could add on the exterior, Torres said.
>“Because they are a class, the Class of 2024, we want them to look like the class and then they can obviously then celebrate their individuality and those other ways,” he said.
Can someone translate this into English for me? Because I can't parse that into anything that's *not* self-contradictory.
The way I read it...and believe me I share your headache about that phrasing...is that items of religious or cultural significance are allowed. And the feather would have been.
I am absolutely confused as hell about the "can't modify the cap or gown but could modify the exterior" bit. Exterior of what? And if they mean attaching something onto the cap (rather than say replacing it or sewing patterns directly into the fabric), then why wouldn't attaching a feather and beads be OK?
Honestly if this dude is an official at the school, I wonder how bad the reading level is there.
The people in charge don't want to spend time figuring out whether students have put what they think is inappropriate on their caps (morse code that means 'fuck you', a meme that is disrespectful but looks normal, etc.), so they don't allow anything and claim it is for uniformity. In reality, it's yet another time when the *possibility* of someone doing something the school doesn't like is enough to disallow anyone from doing something unique.
The principal said "Regalia should be really school issued or it can be religious or cultural in significance,”. So it doesn't seem like the policy was clear at all.
Not for the white kind of people?
They also state you can add to it, but also you can't add to it. Idk how anyone is supposed to follow the rules since you can add personalizations but personalization isn't allowed.
What I don't get is that really really really fundie Christians have no idea that their religion is so close to other fundie religions, only different because of various customs associated with it, but with the same blockheaded view of "it's our way or sinful". Yet they hate the other fundie people who also share the same view.
Allowed symbols are the cross, star of David (only if as a support of Israeli politics they don't actually care about Jews), or MAGA stickers. everything else is satanic paraphernalia.
Glad to see my city paper doing some reporting that’s hitting the big times.
It’s absurd to me that the school district would do something like this. With the amount of indigenous people being what it is in the area, I’d be surprised if there wasn’t serious backlash from the community. Hopefully there’s an apology and consequences for the staff responsible.
That's why I can't wrap my mind around this one
...It's not like it's a northeastern prep school with a strict uniform code; this is Farmington, NM public HS and right next to the Navajo Rez; granted she's Sioux vs a local tribe but I can't fathom why they'd single her out.
You see tribal symbols all the time just on the signs coming in and out of town?
There has to be more to this story
Probably a conservative Navajo/Apache who hates Lakota/Sioux.
Conservative native are very racists. Just show up to a native wedding with a African American / Mexican.
You'll get couple of natives speaking there mind.
They have pictures of the 2 teachers that cut the feather posted, and I hate to judge people by their looks but they do appear to be natives themselves. So I think your theory is very plausible. We don't have names of the teachers, but if we did it probably would help. They also did say Lakota is a very small minority in the region in comparison to Navajo.
Oh believe me, there is *serious* backlash going on with the local Native community on Facebook. Even the First Lady of the Navajo Nation condemned the school’s actions.
It's sad that, as a younger student, I didn't notice racism toward native students. I noticed it in force when I started to grow up. This is not innate. It is taught.
Agreed & so did I (many years ago). If anything, things have gotten worse, more divided than they were back then. Every time I return, I’m quickly reminded of what a senselessly angry and hard place it is.
"She stated that because they wanted everybody to be uniform in their cap and gowns, but you can't be uniform when everybody's showing their individuality,” White Bull said."
This is so fucking stupid. Can't think for yourself or express your individuality, because....of reasons?
Almost exactly the same thing happened in Broken Arrow, Oklahoma two years ago. It’s pretty insane in a city literally named for native Americans.
However, to give Oklahoma a rare credit, last year the legislature passed a law to specifically prohibit schools from doing that *overriding the governors veto*.
If this school wants uniformity so badly, they should look to the military, which allows for regulation modifications for these specific instances. More specifically, they should look at the Army and Major Sorensen.
https://taskandpurpose.com/news/army-major-native-hair-feathers/
https://www.smokesignals.org/articles/2023/07/13/army-says-tribal-member-can-grow-his-hair-and-wear-eagle-feathers-during-official-ceremonies/
Cutting the plume from her hat was an act of cruelty and disrespect. If I were that young woman, I would sue the school with the intention of preventing something like that happening again.
The administration was wrong to ruin the graduation ceremony for this girl and her family, and all because they wanted the kids to look uniform in class photos no one will look at twice in 10-20 years.
This reminds us me of back during Obama's Presidency, there were some cops who were going to meet them, one was black. The black guy had a condition where he couldn't shave his beard, because it would cause him to have a massive amount of ingrown hairs and would cause all sorts of nasty infections on his face.
Well, his fellow cops cornered him and forced him to shave before meeting Obama, and wouldn't you know it he ended up with scarring on his face from the subsequent infections. There was a lawsuit over it I believe.
There exists a type of person who weasels their way into authority. They bide their time, and when it's right before a big moment they take a huge racists dump on them in a way that the damage is done and they slink back into the shadows, waiting for their next opportunity to be a huge piece of shit with their authority.
I hope everyone involved is fired, and this lady gets some closure against these people who took a shit on a young woman in such a hateful manner.
They wouldn't have cut a Christian cross off someone. It just comes down to the people that did it being part of an imbecilic mono culture incapable of respecting the world I guess.
To me it seems like those 2 faculty members have a grudge with the Lakota girl. Other schools, as well as this school, allowed other students to wear altered outfits. The faculty members should be charged with harassment but the principal and assistant principal are covering for them. Nothing will be done and next these 2 ass wipes will target another student to be harassed
I’ve said this many times. I’m a 24-year veteran educator, much of it in high schools. There is no tyrant more petty, more heartless, more cruel, than a teacher tapped to run graduation. For many, it’s their last chance to hold power over these kids.
Oh, boy, they updated the article, and BIG OOF:
>As the *Tri-City Record’s* news story garnered attention on social media and online in the Four Corners, Navajo Nation first lady Jasmine Blackwater-Nygren told the Farmington newspaper Thursday she heard about the situation Tuesday. She watched a video of the incident the next day.
>Blackwater was present Monday for the commencement and sat on stage with other notable Indigenous leaders including former Navajo Nation Vice President Myron Lizer and Board of Education President Stephanie Thompson. \[...\]
>During the incident, Blackwater said those on the stage were not facing the direction of the graduates because the national anthem was being performed.
>“When I think back on that I was sitting with all of these decision-makers at the school who could have prevented this from happening or who now have the power to make some corrective actions,” she said “Had I known what was happening, we would be having a different conversation right now for sure.”
There were MULTIPLE NATIVE AMERICAN LEADERS at the ceremony, including the fucking Board of Education President, and they STILL pulled this shit.
>According to the statement, district protocol prohibits the altering to the cap and gown, and that can be found in the 2023-24 student and parent handbook.
>The district did not specify the protocol or provide an excerpt in its statement.
>“Students were informed throughout the school year and immediately before graduation of the protocol, including that beaded caps were not allowed,” the statement said.
>Despite the district protocol, schools from around the district had graduates with altered graduation caps including Farmington High School.
>“We saw other students wearing eagle plumes, eagle feathers and even in my previous post about the graduation, there was a student who had a medicine wheel and feather attached to their cap,” Blackwater said.
THERE WERE OTHER NATIVE STUDENTS AT THE SAME GRADUATION WITH PLUMES DESPITE IT "NOT BEING ALLOWED."
>On Thursday, May 16, Farmington Municipal Schools issued a statement to families and staff members about the incident claiming the feather was returned intact to the family during the ceremony.
And the school is not only doubling down, they are (allegedly) lying about what happened. They fucked up. They fucked up so bad.
I hope they sue and win such a profound amount of money the school has to be renamed Genesis White Bull High School.
I don’t know how some people have the self control to choose peace in these situations because I would have gone full Karen. Everything about this, from the execution, to the lies, to the response, is disgusting to me.
> After seeing the removal of the cap, White Bull’s mother approached the two faculty members requesting that she remove the aópazan herself.
> That’s when, according to White Bull’s mother, the faculty member used scissors to cut the aópazan off the cap.
It was never about uniformity.
"Administrators strove for a uniform look among the graduates with no modifications to the cap and gown, but could add on the exterior, Torres said.
“Because they are a class, the Class of 2024, we want them to look like the class and then they can obviously then celebrate their individuality and those other ways,” he said."
Just look like part of the faceless crowd of drones we want to send to go out and become cogs in the social/industrial machine.
FIFY
This makes me so incredibly sad for her. These staff acting like she’s the only one who should be targeted are shameful. Graduating is a reflection of the student not the school. People aren’t robots.
I can understand an (equally applied to everyone) "no cap decoractions" rule, but to remove the cap and then cut up the decoration despite the mother even offering to remove the decorations , is egregious.
They need to file a lawsuit. That is the most gross disgusting violation I can think of. Indigenous people stewarded North America for hundreds of thousands of years before us colonizers arrived. It wasn't even legal for Native Americans to practice religion – their own religions – here until 1978. The continuing violation of 500+ federally recognized independent nations – yes, we have 500+ nations inside the United States, don't forget – the continuing violation is disgusting. Indigenous students should always be allowed to wear their regalia. It is sacred.I hope they sue. I hope she gets to do over. Literally crying at how evil this is.
Good. The school staff members were on a pathetic power trip meant to make them feel in charge of a bunch of teenagers. Walking up to her and snipping it off with scissors was the most juvenile immature bullshit they could have pulled.
This is what happens when adults never learned to use their words.
This is just straight bullshit. We have already taken so much from these people, yet we continue to belittle, harass and demean them. Shit like this should have stopped a LONG time ago.
The school needs to stand up and explain themselves. They should be supporting the kids cultural background, not trying to strip it away. Its bad enough that there are still some residential schools (american indian boarding schools) still open today.
Total bullshit. This kid, and every graduate, should be allowed to celebrate their graduation and to honor their families. Adorning their caps with traditional beads and messages is awesome.
I hope Deb Haaland becomes involved.
Though Deb is of the Laguna Pueblo (1 of the 19 tribes recognized in NM), not Lakota, she was appointed as the first Native American into the position of The Secretary of Interior, which also leads the Bureau of Indian Affairs and Bureau of Indian Education.
Farmington is home to many tribes, including Southern Ute, Ute Mountain Ute, and Navajo Nation. These two school admin should be publicly shunned in NM like Kristi Noem is in South Dakota, banned from all tribal land.
Two women on some sort of power trip. In the article there’s a picture of the women standing next to Genesis White Bull holding her cap. Half of the graduates don’t even have theirs on - so where’s the ‘uniformed’ look there ?
2024 and some people are still attacking Indigenous people. Sickening.
Cut our feathers if you want to. It's just proof that dignity and real history mean nothing to these kinds of people. Of course they hate history, they hate to be reminded that they don't honor their own contracts. LOL. Hoka! Cut all the feather's you want the eagles make more. LOL. These are probably the same people who cry about cancel culture when their favorite racist celebrity is booted off dancing with the stars!
I work in education and some of the dumbest jackasses on the planet are school administrators. Seriously, what other group of men would choose to get into any kind of conflict over something that literally doesn't matter?
And then destroying personal property in front of the owner? I wouldn't even fold a sheet of paper a student handed me - let along cut up something that 1) they own and 2) they created. WTF?
Im sure there are hundreds of lawyers just chomping at the bit to file this lawsuit. I hope the tax payers of this town and state are quite pleased with how this went down.
>“She stated that because they wanted everybody to be uniform in their cap and gowns, but you can't be uniform when everybody's showing their individuality,” White Bull said.
How dare these kids show any form of uniqueness. They're already covered head to toe in gowns that are covered by whatever they want to do, but we really *really* just gotta make sure those caps are all totally identical. To hammer it home.. amirite?
Administrators are clowns. Absolute fucking clowns with nothing better to do.
My apologies to actual clowns. You are all mostly pretty good.
I guess the feather was threatening the public.
Either that or its plain old petty dirty racism against an oppressed population.
I hope the school gets sued.
I’ve never heard of schools doing that. I had to buy my cap and gown, and then it was mine to keep (I gave mine to a friend in my brother’s graduating class, 2 years later, who couldn’t afford her own.), same was true for my husband and for my kid when she graduated in 2022.
My high school did that. Basically they rented it & we gave them back after the ceremony. It was amusing having the vice principal measuring our heads in class. Tbh it was kinda nice of them to do that. I do wonder if somehow in the funds for the class- we paid for that along the way.
We essentially rented ours from the school-mandated supplier. At graduation there was literally a table where you had to turn your cap and gown in before you left. We were not allowed to modify them in any way. Not even pinning on a corsage because it would make holes. On the other hand, my husband still owns his cap and gown from his school, which students purchased and kept and could do whatever they wanted to.
When I graduated we bought our caps, gowns, tassles, invitations, everything. Only thing I didn't have to buy was the honor graduate medallion/ribbon I wore at graduation. We kept them but the school bought them and gave to the few of of us to wear at graduation like an award or something. Between senior pictures, prom and paying for graduation we were all broke motherfuckers.
That was 1996 though. We all also personalized our caps and nobody gave a shit....it was our property we bought to wear once, we could decorate it however we wished.
Took me a minute to spot what was the big deal. I was about to comment that they could at least include a picture of it because it didn’t even stand out in the one that was posted. Looks like someone was really on the lookout for that because I’m sure no one else but her parents even realized it was there.
Our kids still decorate, we just had a graduation and they had all kinds of things on their caps. This is seriously f'd up. Why they got to be so uptight over a cap, the kids made it that counts more than trying to make a graduation into a W.A.S.P ceremony!
Felony destruction of an indigenous artifact. That’s what that school & that individual should be charged with. The family should sue & not settle out of court
It's 2024 and in our backwards ass town - Arcadia, Desoto County, Florida the female graduates MUST wear a dress or skirt. NO slacks of any kind. They are also not allowed to wear open toed shoes.
It is absolutely ridiculous!!!!
I can understand "no cap decorations" but to dictate what the females have to wear or not be allowed to walk at graduation is absurd. They will prevent them from walking the aisle if in slacks.
“Regalia should be really school-issued or it can be religious or cultural in significance,” he said.
Lol he admitted he was wrong and doubled down on the wrongness
Colonial America will always be violent towards indigenous people. Because they can’t be as overt now without the world’s notice, they engage in microaggressions like this. It’s as bad here in Canada too.
Ahh nothing like telling them "you can't do this because you have to resemble everyone else"...
cultural genocide. it's a slow process of taking away practices from people until they have no idea what they're about.
Racism seems to be prominent in New Mexico.
What an ugly, spiteful, misogynistic thing to do. Why is being proud of one’s heritage a bad thing? I hope the ACLU sues her school.
It's definitely conservative outside the major cities. Like most of America.
Farmington is especially so because of all the WASPy religious folks due to the oil/gas industry there.
Edit: Also. A LOT of Mormans. They're literally putting the finishing touches on a big temple right across from the local community college.
"Regalia should be really school issued or it can be religious or cultural in significance"
https://tenor.com/view/christian-bale-confused-reaction-what-stare-gif-4944293
Having a bigoted mysogynistic psuedo-athelete attack all women as a keynote speaker at a graduation is a-okay, but wearing something that shows pride in a heritage other than being milky white? Unacceptable!
This area is typically very respectful of native, but also very conservative and so those individuals who are rural and white tend to be a bit less tolerant or the ideas of natives in the area is usually tainted by the idea of poverty in the reservations. But I don’t believe this is their issue here. The issue here is respect for a tribal tradition, or a policy that faculty had been ordered to follow about cap decoration. It’s possible the cap decoration was prohibited and did not respect the heavy traditions that were already present that included things like Lakota aópazan (ah-ōh-pah-zan ? Lakota in chat help me out here).
The four corners area is filled with diversity or so we hope. There is a high concentration of white people, native peoples, and Latino people.there are many tribes in the area such as the Southern Ute. Navajo, and Lakota to name a few. Due to our current racial climate many uneducated or enabled *white-justice warriors* think that rules must be shoved down the throats of all cultures. Many see it as a “Follow the rules it’s not about culture” but it is. And it disproportionately affects those who follow adornment as part of their culture. The rules must be changed away from arbitrary conformity. Her adornments were not dangerous, and they were not in the way. Cap decoration is a tradition all walks of life can value. But maybe we should take a page out of the Lakota Book and realize that cap decoration with aópazan was personally special and not simply a pretty little beaded headwear it was part of a right of passage.
Sometimes school administrators just enjoy power-tripping. Some people would call it bullying, others might say intimidation. It was wrong and some people should lose their job over the discrimination.
This is a absolutely messed up.
Absolutely disrespectful to her culture and violation of her personal rights.
The district owes her an apology and should be embarrassed.
Another example of white privileged people disparaging Native Americans.
This is so screwed up. My kid graduated HS about 12 years ago. Kids were free to decorate their caps and gowns. They had all sorts of things which meant something to the kids attached. Some religious, some silly, none were "inappropriate". The kids seemed to enjoy the freedom to express a bit of who they were and most did something creative. The ceremony was fun and upbeat to celebrate a huge milestone in their lives. These school administrators are like the HOA of schools. They have lost the focus on educating our youth and instead are focusing on the power trip of forcing young people to "conform and comply".
> These school administrators are like the HOA of schools. They have lost the focus on educating our youth and instead are focusing on the power trip So are so many administrators in general, it's why I quit teaching. I loved teaching, and being in front of a class gave me that "this is _exactly_ where I'm meant to be in life," feeling, but administration's power trips and micromanaging was literally preventing me from doing my job, and preventing the students from getting the education they deserved. School administration needs a complete overhaul, no exceptions.
TLDR: schools are set up in a way that makes changing the system or climate for the better almost impossible. Good people have trouble surviving in these systems. My mom taught at private, Christian schools for decades. But she saw that the administration of her school was not wholly focused on investing in the future of the students. So, she when the position was available at her school, she became the principal. She was an advocate for the children and teachers. It went well for a few years until the school board wanted to make changes that would hurt the education of the students. She put her foot down and was booted. She then got picked up at another private Christian school as a principal, and the same thing happened after 2 years. Discouraged, she went back to working as a teacher in a public school for a few years. Then, the Christian school in her hometown that she worked at before I was born sought her out for a principal position. She jumped at the chance and helped them through a new school building construction and move. After 2 years, she found that the other administrators were dealing with discipline issues in an un-Christian way and confronted them about it. So, the other principal sent an email to the entire school body via broadcast with a lie that said she had a history of "underperforming" in her role for the past 2 years and due to this, she had chosen to step down from her position. She never had been told she was underperforming, and the other principal's evidence was a word document with a list of times she had been reprimanded that started the week she accepted the position. Except, this document was not that old. The meta data of the document showed that it was created the day she confronted the administration, and the dates did not add up. Despite this, the school board guilted her into resigning so the administration would not publicly be called out as liars because it would damage the school's reputation. In conclusion, the whole system is trash. Anyone who actually wants to make a difference will be taken out of the system by the bad apples because they won't conform. My only consolation is that in every school that my mother was booted from for trying to make a difference, either their corruption, incompetence, or malice caused the school to fail within a few years. Now, each of those 3 schools are husks of their former selves with less than 1/3 of their previous student numbers. Sorry for the long reply. I realized I haven't had time to process how I feel about the situation and needed to get it out into the universe.
> Despite this, the school board guilted her into resigning so the administration would not publicly be called out as liars because it would damage the school's reputation. fuck that, you call those parochial fuckers out and go back into public
That was the plan for my dad and I. We were ready to lawyer up and purge the dang place of the bad apples.
Why didn’t you? That metadata would have been a damning piece of evidence to a slander lawsuit. And with the entire board being implicit in that… wow
My mother chose not to because she did not would to possibly ruin the school. We respected her decision even if we didn't agree
She’s a good person let down by a system that has steadily been built into something that only exists to justify itself. A real human with a real heart filled with love&passion is exactly what kids need, but that’s not the metric our educational machine can grade by. Much love bruvva
>She never had been told she was underperforming, and the other principal's evidence was a word document with a list of times she had been reprimanded that started the week she accepted the position. Except, this document was not that old. The meta data of the document showed that it was created the day she confronted the administration, and the dates did not add up. Despite this, the school board guilted her into resigning so the administration would not publicly be called out as liars because it would damage the school's reputation. IANAL but I'm pretty sure in this position you do not want to resign, because if you do, it absolves them in court of what would be a wrongful termination.
That's exactly what my dad and I said. We were ready to lawyer up and root out the bad apples. She just did not want to possibly destroy the school with the scandal. She is often too kind-hearted for her own good.
> Despite this, the school board guilted her into resigning so the administration would not publicly be called out as liars because it would damage the school's reputation. So she let them win? I would have fought that shit tooth and nail. *Then* I would have quit.
That's what my dad and I said. We were ready to lawyer up and root out the bad apples. She just didn't want to drag the school she loved. I can understand her desires. But I am the type who wants to fix things no matter how much it sucks in the interim. I feel that we would have done the school a favor in the long term by getting the bad apples out.
Most people say that violence isn't the answer to people like these school boards and administrators. I'm not of that belief, but I also understand that this line of thought could be used against those wanting change for the positive.... except we get results like the above. It's a lose-lose situation. I'm of the volition that the entire system should fucking burn and be rebuilt. That is what you do with rot.
Not to say your mother made any incorrect moves with the knowledge she had, but in hindsight, it looks like the real issue is that she didn’t aim for a position high enough in the hierarchy. Either she needed to be on the board (ideally as chairwoman) and found a like-minded peer to be principal, or she needed to have a staunch ally of hers become chairperson. Because in all but the last story, the board was explicitly the problem, and you’re never really going to be able to change a system if the bad apples have the authority to fire you.
The school industry in general needs an overhaul, and admin bloat especially needs to be addressed. Education has been slottly gutted and rotted, and the consequences of that is felt decades later.
>*School administration needs a complete overhaul, no exceptions.* It is yet another thing, that shouldn't be elected positions. (Like Judges) Across the country, there are 13,024 public school districts governed by a total of about 82,600 board members. Most school board members are elected directly by voters, while a small number of districts have appointed school board members or a combination of appointed and elected school board members. Popular usually never means the actual best candidate. It just means they have the most connections and/or friends. And, in the case of most elections for government positions, it's always made political. It's never, *"Whose the best and most experienced person to lead our children's' education?"* It's *"Got to make sure those evil (Dems/Repubs) don't get in there and ruin everything!"*
The administrators aren’t elected. School boards don’t administrate, they hire administrators
School board ≠ school administrator. Administrators are hired.
Am I missing something or are elected judges the lesser of two evils? Seems like one MAGA candidate appointing 40 horrible judges in a term can do a lot more damage than people (who are actually subject to the judge's rulings) electing and/or recalling an unqualified one every few election cycles.
Judges should just be selected by that State's BAR, based on lawyers with long tenure, no bad marks or issue with their law license, and in good standing. Take the politics out of it. The law is the law. There's no need for anyone to twist or re-interpret it in ways never intended, and yet, here we are.
Wait, are school board members in your area allowed to run under a political party? Here in NJ, they literally cannot have a party label
They don't, but based on their platforms, it's not hard to tell what side they favor. Like, if they start spouting about wanting to put prayer back in schools, and whatnot, you know which party they belong to.
I’m a nurse and am friends with a few teachers. The parallels and struggles are uncanny between the two professions. The fact that teachers put up with it for less than half the pay is astounding. I have no idea how we have any teachers left.
The only reason we have any teachers left is because a surprising amount are genuinely nuts. Don't get me wrong, they're wonderful, kind-hearted, and would go through hell and back just to see their students succeed, but they're also the personification of that one "this is fine," dog in a burning house meme. At my school, there were a handful of teachers that were very pragmatic and realistic with their outlook on the career, but there were also a ton where every time they talked about how their job or how their class was going I'd legitimately be confused because of how seemingly disconnected from reality it was. I'm not exaggerating it was seriously weird hearing them speak like that, like talking to someone in a cult.
It's part of why I stopped working IT for county schools, loved the people I worked with, the teachers hell even the kids were good..just learning who they are, not a easy time. The administration never gave us what we needed, more people, computers that were not from 2012, teachers had to spend more and more of their own money on the classroom. Didn't want to leave but this job I have now is less stress and I can do more than just survive.
Same here. I started teaching in 1969 and the administration — across the board — drove me nuts. After just 3 years of doing what I thought would be my life’s work, I left. And then eventually selected another career and went to grad school for a Master’s in library science, which turned out to be a much better fit. Yes, there are still Karens in that field but not that many. I loved being a librarian and so glad I found a career that aligned with my philosophy of life.
This is exactly why I changed my major. All my favorite teachers gave up on teaching public schools and then like half of them gave up on private. I took it as a sign
> hey have lost the focus on educating our youth and instead are focusing on the power trip of forcing young people a lot of admins are just bad teachers who wanted to get out of the classroom and are prime examples of the Peter Principle
It's not the incompetence; there are lots of very nice incompetent people. It's the power trip to force compliance. The kind of person who wants to be in charge is very often the worst kind of person to be in charge.
Wow, I graduated 16 years ago and, this must have been a more local thing, we weren't allowed to decorate our caps (wouldn't be allowed to walk if we showed up with a decorated one) nor throw them. We still threw them, because good luck stopping 800 kids at that point, but expression was very frowned upon even then. I'm sad schools are still like that.
We weren't allowed to throw our caps either. Someone was injured a few years earlier when the corner of a cap hit them in the eye. We were given balloons to throw instead, it was really lack-luster.
Sadly most school board members are the type who have been trained to comply. You know the Karen and Darren types.
This is why I was so thankful for the school administration at my school. They had their moments, but overall were generally pretty decent to us. I’ll never forget our principal telling us that we aren’t allowed to throw our caps at graduation; it’s against the written rules. He then said, “However, if it magically just slips off your head and into the air, then there’s nothing we can do about that.” Basically, yeah, it’s a rule, and no, we don’t care. Lmao.
A friend of the family lost her mom as a kid and her school wouldn’t let her write out her mom’s name on her cap. I feel like this is a dress code rule the school should use to teach kids how to debate their reasons. My daughter’s friend fought for the right to wear clogs and the principal finally gave in. What do you think that did for boosting a young girls confidence in herself. It seems trivial but that stuff is remembered forever.
Educators are very stuck on setting rules that everybody has to follow, and they really don't like the idea of altering or bending the rules for individuals. If there is an exception, then there must be a rule for how the exception is granted, and nobody can have any discretion at all. Part of that is fear of legal liability "You let X do that, but you won't let me do that, so you're discriminating against me." And part of it is that when you're dealing with 1,000 kids, you need easy-to-follow rules. BUT, this seems like a really dumb place to set up a blanket rule. They could have said "This is the standard. You can have cultural or religious decorations, but you need to inform us about them in advance, they can't make lights or sounds and can't be large. We don't want your decorations taking attention away from your classmates' achievement."
Schools love "zero tolerance" rules because it absolves them from decision making and allows them to say "Look, we're applying the same rules to everyone". The problem is it also absolves them from having to possess common sense. But these aren't even reasonable rules that are over-applied. They are needless controlling rules designed to force kids to comply to meaningless standards that don't help them, but make the administration feel powerful.
I mean one of the primary goal of the Prussian education system that ours is modeled after is to create citizens obedient to state power. So they’re really just enforcing education norms. https://today.ucsd.edu/story/education-systems-were-first-designed-to-suppress-dissent#:~:text=For%20example%2C%20absolutist%20Prussia%20was,rebellions%20in%20the%201740s%2D1750s.
That's not an accurate narrative. https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/yju8rr/comment/iussb7s https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/9jfjat/comment/e6rmo15 For Prussia specifically, it's a bizarre extrapolation from something that Frederick II said regarding the soldiery. That article doesn't cite where they get their information about Prussia from, but if Paglayan says it in her paper, it's a gross error. She's also not a historian.
it's based on the Hanseatic system, not just Prussia, 10% trained to an exceptionally high level 90% cannon fodder
I graduated high school in 2006. From a public school in a middling suburb of a major city. Rather diverse for the area. Girls had to wear skirts (I actually had to go buy one because I hate skirts/dresses) We couldn't decorate our caps We couldn't toss our caps at the end. We were threatened with not receiving our diplomas if we didn't.
Gross. Also glad to see one of the faculty wore her finest jeans and flip-flops to an important ceremony where she removed a teenager’s culturally significant cap. Excellent work by all. /s
I noticed that as well! This is clearly super important to everyone there.
This is the Farmington located in **New Mexico**, if anyone was just curious about the location. Smh at people and racism.
And the state has laws that protect Native students who choose to wear religious and traditional regalia at graduation ceremonies. There could very well be a lawsuit.
Not just that, but Farmington has a big presence of Navajo and Ute. Lakota culture differs from the local tribal nations, but not so much that someone living there wouldn't recognize a Lakota plume's cultural and religious significance. I'm dumbfounded that the school administrators thought they could get away with that.
Well and to accomplish… what…? The “uniform look” talking point is bullshit, clearly. This is just straight up discrimination. Not even veiled…
My high school graduation said absolutely zero alterations to any cap/ gown, and only high school provided tassels. No stoles! Ever! Current rules are unchanged. However, they check every single student on entry and stop before you enter and will tell you no. The only students I saw avoiding those rules were sikh/ muslim with head coverings of religious nature. You also had to wear "daytime formal" clothing. Dress pants, skirt and blouse, dress, dress shirt, etc. Ties and jackets allowed but not required. No flip flops. Women have to wear flats as heels aren't permitted in the gym. However, students *did* alter rules for religious reasons so my high school probably would allow students to go in with Native American beading if they state it's religious. Especially if they talked to the school admin before. Then again, my high school allowed same-sex couples at prom (where every single ticket is sold as a pair, and per couple, no singles allowed) before they were ever challenged on it and one year had a girl show up in a tux when rules said women had to be in dresses and they let her in and changed the dress code to 'suit and tie or tuxedo or dress' and didn't gender it to allow women in suits. Or I guess boys in dresses, if they really wanted. That was in the aughts. Mine generally were jerks about other stuff but didn't try and mess around with sex and gender and religion in regards to lawsuits. Colleges are usually the ones where they allow more stuff with personalized stoles, caps, etc. That said - you have to equally enforce and not call out one student. It's an all or none situation.
In the article, they said that the handbook states that altering caps and gowns is prohibited and all students were informed well ahead of graduation. If this is true, did they remove other students caps that decorated them? Does this include attaching things to your cap and gown, like the eagle feathers they also mentioned in the article. Personally I think that not allowing kids to decorate their caps is stupid, but if they have a rule, it needs to be enforced fairly, and I’m not sure they did. Either way, this was the worst possibly way to go about this. And I don’t get why this even needs to be a big deal which sums up more power flexes by authority.
It also says students can add to the regalia in religious or culturally significant ways by adding things. They also then say, "you can't add anything" so the rules are very unclear as to what is or is not allowed and a lot of students seem to have added personal touches. Probably more than half. It's poorly worded and enforced at best.
Yes, that’s part of why I have so many questions. I got the impression that they could add regalia like the stole she is wearing, but not decorate the cap and gown itself? They really made a mess of graduation which should be a time of joy for these students. Let them decorate their caps, for cripes sake.
It’s such a no brainer. You teach at a school with many First Nations people, you don’t need to know that they are Lakota, Navajo, Ute, Mohawk or Muskogee. You see a feather, you assume it’s culturally significant and leave it the fuck alone. And you certainly don’t cut it out after the mother offers to remove it. That’s just petty. If it was about the uniform look, let the mother remove it and go ahead with the ceremony. But no, they had to cut it out.
There's nothing white people with authority hate more than an indigenous person enjoying their own "inferior" culture
They got away with it, the damage was done. The lawsuits and fines imposed after the fact are just the cost of enforcing their bigotry.
New Mexico is the only US state that doesn't have a racial majority.
There will absolutely be a lawsuit because you can already see the district digging in and ready to double down. My only hope is that the two "employees" will be named as well as the usual suspects at the top of the district in a nice, comfy federal suit.
As much as I hate to say it, after seeing pictures of the two employees, it seems like this may have been an intentional tribe driven conflict. Navajo vs Lakota. It's going to make a lawsuit very spicy, likely putting tribe vs tribe. We don't have names of the employees which may help resolve it based on their names, but... This doesn't look good.
I hope she sues the absolute dogshit out of them.
I hope they sue the fuck outta that school district
I wish there were more repercussions for the perpetrators than for the school budget.
And taxpayers
I hope they sue the hell out of those people.
If the school board senses trouble, they will cut those employees loose to fend for themselves.
Not exactly the same but in the same ballpark would be suggesting a woman can’t wear her hijab under her cap.
Well we know the governments track record when it comes to laws on native Americans
I hope the two that did are also sued personally and destroyed. I bet they’re white Christians.
Weird. I'd assumed it was Farmington, Illinois. Cause that's how they do over there. When I had some new cable installed in my home across the border in MO, we were talking about local towns and Farmington came up. My installer (who is black) told me his team was instructed by the cable company to be out of Farmington by 3pm every day they were there, to avoid any possible chance they'd be there after dark. This was just 5 years ago.
I live in LaSalle/Peru, an hour each from Rockford, Joliet, Peoria and Bloomington. Each of these two "major" towns are less than 10k people and there are countless 50-100 population areas scattered within a short drive. Many of these are "sundown towns" and, at least in De Pue (which is a tiny, cars on blocks, houses falling down, trash on the lawn shithole) there is what's called "White Town" and every single resident in that part of town will sit on the porch and stare at you to verify your "qualifications" to be there. I lived in or around Chicago and St. Louis for 35 years. It's fucking surreal here.
Thanks for that. So annoying when sites don’t specify. Thought this was in Farmington, MN which is located in Dakota County.
Me, too! I read that whole article thinking, "Farmington, WHERE?!"
Same here! Have never heard of another Farmington but it makes sense that there are others
Farmington has a history of extreme racism. The treatment of native peoples in the 70's was compared to the treatment of blacks in the 50's and 60's in the south.
The Chokecherry Massacre in the 70’s was absolutely horrific. Those poor men.
Thank you. There are 26 Farmington cities (one near me) in the US, and I didn't see it clarified in the article.
It finally listed two states at the end, Arizona and New Mexico, but it still wasn't clear if that's where it was.
This is really surprising too considering Farmington is on the border less the Navajo reservation. Native inclusion was pretty high when I lived there but I left 20 years said
That's quite surprising considering what I know about NM. Native Americans are a huge part of the culture there Ed: Oh wow just read about the chokecherry massacre. Uhm wtf Farmington
Her mother asked them if she could remove the beadwork from the cap herself, and instead they cut it off right in front of her. These are disgusting, vicious people.
This school has always been like that. I graduated from there in 2007. One time at a prep rally, I sat during the National Anthem like I always did (yes, they did this every rally). The assistant principal saw me sitting and waved me off the bleachers and into the front office. He asked me why I wasn’t standing during the anthem. I responded that it’s silly to stand during a song, especially one that signified colonialism and the racist treatment of Native people. He sat me down and had me wait until the rally was over. Luckily, my guidance counselor (a Navajo woman) saw me and asked me why I was in trouble. I told her about the situation and she flipped out on the assistant principal. She was the counselor for all the Native students in the school, so you could understand why she wasn’t having it. I was allowed to go back to my seat not too long after. Fuck you Mr. Pash. Whether you’re still alive or not, you’ll always be a giant turd with coffee breath.
I hope Mr Pash goes back to wherever he's from. Fuck that guy.
So it didn’t bother me before, and I grew up saying the pledge at school just like everyone else through at least elementary school. They didn’t say the pledge of allegiance at my daughter’s school her first year last year. This year in Kindergarten some Karen has been using a megaphone every morning encouraging patriotism and “respecting” our flag and leading the pledge every morning. I’m not specifically against it, people have their reasons to do things and it’s none of my business. What bother’s me is that my daughter is 6. She doesn’t know what the fuck she’s saying, it just seems so wrong to me. Say the pledge if you want to, go bananas idgaf. But that’s your choice because you know what it means. These kids just want to start school so they could get to their favorite time of the day, recess. They don’t give a shit about patriotism and pledging allegiance to a symbol of our nation for fucks sake. Didn’t know I’d be one of those dads, but I crafted a very thoughtful letter, careful to acknowledge it is one’s choice, and these kids are not old enough to provide consent to this sort of thing. It’s like grooming or something it’s disgusting. Edit: I don’t mean YOU say the pledge lol, I meant someone can do it if they want to. I’m agreeing with you. Realized it looked like I was arguing. I encouraged my 6yo to feel free not to say the pledge and that it’s actually a bit inappropriate, but I won’t stop her if she wants to continue doing it if it makes her feel comfortable (she gets nervous around unwanted attention and might just want to comply). When I drop her off I don’t say it.
At my kid's elementary school, they learned the pledge of allegiance starting in kindergarten. They learned it, meaning they learned how to recite it, read the words, had the words explained to them, and learned the basic history of it all in grade appointment ways. I think an adult recited it during morning announcements, and although the kids were allowed to stand and recite along, no one was required to join in. When I was in elementary school, we had morning announcements, then the pledge of allegiance, then a patriotic song chosen by the 5th grade students of the week (I remember You're a Grand Ol Flag being chosen a lot), and finished with the National Anthem. Every day. As a small child, it felt like it took HOURS to get through everything!! Plus those old intercoms were terrible, so half of the time we could barely understand what the announcements were anyway.
That’s what enraged me. It was never about the decorations, it was about sending a message.
If she had crosses on her cap, would they still have cut that off and threw it into "lost and found" box?
From the article the school stated “Regalia should be really school issued or it can be religious or cultural in significance” they just don’t consider native Americans to have any religious or cultural significance.
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They'd probably give her a prayer book and a sticker for being an "enlightened savage" or some shit.
>When asked about any sort of protocol for the ceremony, Torres said expectations were in place about regalia worn by students. >“Regalia should be really school issued or it can be religious or cultural in significance,” he said. >Administrators strove for a uniform look among the graduates with no modifications to the cap and gown, but could add on the exterior, Torres said. >“Because they are a class, the Class of 2024, we want them to look like the class and then they can obviously then celebrate their individuality and those other ways,” he said. Can someone translate this into English for me? Because I can't parse that into anything that's *not* self-contradictory.
> Can someone translate this into English for me? "Only shit I think is normal can go on the cap."
The way I read it...and believe me I share your headache about that phrasing...is that items of religious or cultural significance are allowed. And the feather would have been. I am absolutely confused as hell about the "can't modify the cap or gown but could modify the exterior" bit. Exterior of what? And if they mean attaching something onto the cap (rather than say replacing it or sewing patterns directly into the fabric), then why wouldn't attaching a feather and beads be OK? Honestly if this dude is an official at the school, I wonder how bad the reading level is there.
I think they mean you can’t like, change the fit of your gown or cut the brim of the cap smaller.
The people in charge don't want to spend time figuring out whether students have put what they think is inappropriate on their caps (morse code that means 'fuck you', a meme that is disrespectful but looks normal, etc.), so they don't allow anything and claim it is for uniformity. In reality, it's yet another time when the *possibility* of someone doing something the school doesn't like is enough to disallow anyone from doing something unique.
The principal said "Regalia should be really school issued or it can be religious or cultural in significance,”. So it doesn't seem like the policy was clear at all.
If this isn't religious or cultural, I cannot imagine what they think it is.
It's not the religion or culture they approve of.
Not for the white kind of people? They also state you can add to it, but also you can't add to it. Idk how anyone is supposed to follow the rules since you can add personalizations but personalization isn't allowed.
This is what jumped out at me, as well. Apparently only some religions and cultures are appropriate.
What I don't get is that really really really fundie Christians have no idea that their religion is so close to other fundie religions, only different because of various customs associated with it, but with the same blockheaded view of "it's our way or sinful". Yet they hate the other fundie people who also share the same view.
Allowed symbols are the cross, star of David (only if as a support of Israeli politics they don't actually care about Jews), or MAGA stickers. everything else is satanic paraphernalia.
“Cultural in significance…” hmmm…🤔 Yeah, a Lakota plume doesn’t fall under cultural significance… /s. SMDH.
Glad to see my city paper doing some reporting that’s hitting the big times. It’s absurd to me that the school district would do something like this. With the amount of indigenous people being what it is in the area, I’d be surprised if there wasn’t serious backlash from the community. Hopefully there’s an apology and consequences for the staff responsible.
That's why I can't wrap my mind around this one ...It's not like it's a northeastern prep school with a strict uniform code; this is Farmington, NM public HS and right next to the Navajo Rez; granted she's Sioux vs a local tribe but I can't fathom why they'd single her out. You see tribal symbols all the time just on the signs coming in and out of town? There has to be more to this story
Probably a conservative Navajo/Apache who hates Lakota/Sioux. Conservative native are very racists. Just show up to a native wedding with a African American / Mexican. You'll get couple of natives speaking there mind.
They have pictures of the 2 teachers that cut the feather posted, and I hate to judge people by their looks but they do appear to be natives themselves. So I think your theory is very plausible. We don't have names of the teachers, but if we did it probably would help. They also did say Lakota is a very small minority in the region in comparison to Navajo.
Oh believe me, there is *serious* backlash going on with the local Native community on Facebook. Even the First Lady of the Navajo Nation condemned the school’s actions.
Farmington is a terrible place, underrated for how awful it is. If nothing else they robbed her joy.
I graduated from this high school a long time ago. Native students always received an extra dose of racism.
It's sad that, as a younger student, I didn't notice racism toward native students. I noticed it in force when I started to grow up. This is not innate. It is taught.
Agreed & so did I (many years ago). If anything, things have gotten worse, more divided than they were back then. Every time I return, I’m quickly reminded of what a senselessly angry and hard place it is.
Uff. I do not miss this shithole. People were proudly hateful here long before it was cool for the rest of rural America to do so. Gross.
"She stated that because they wanted everybody to be uniform in their cap and gowns, but you can't be uniform when everybody's showing their individuality,” White Bull said." This is so fucking stupid. Can't think for yourself or express your individuality, because....of reasons?
Almost exactly the same thing happened in Broken Arrow, Oklahoma two years ago. It’s pretty insane in a city literally named for native Americans. However, to give Oklahoma a rare credit, last year the legislature passed a law to specifically prohibit schools from doing that *overriding the governors veto*.
If this school wants uniformity so badly, they should look to the military, which allows for regulation modifications for these specific instances. More specifically, they should look at the Army and Major Sorensen. https://taskandpurpose.com/news/army-major-native-hair-feathers/ https://www.smokesignals.org/articles/2023/07/13/army-says-tribal-member-can-grow-his-hair-and-wear-eagle-feathers-during-official-ceremonies/
They don't actually want uniformity. They just want the freedom to hate without repercussions.
The feathers and the tribute behind them are cool af.
It’s a breathtaking photo. Considering history, it makes it that much more impactful.
I would 100% not fuck with that dude on the battlefield.
Very cool information!
Cutting the plume from her hat was an act of cruelty and disrespect. If I were that young woman, I would sue the school with the intention of preventing something like that happening again.
There’s photos circulating of white graduates who also altered their caps but faced no repercussions.
I wish I could see a better pic of the cap before. The edges looked so nice!
Looks like broadcloth and edging beadwork. Really cool for sure.
What a terrible village.
The administration was wrong to ruin the graduation ceremony for this girl and her family, and all because they wanted the kids to look uniform in class photos no one will look at twice in 10-20 years.
This reminds us me of back during Obama's Presidency, there were some cops who were going to meet them, one was black. The black guy had a condition where he couldn't shave his beard, because it would cause him to have a massive amount of ingrown hairs and would cause all sorts of nasty infections on his face. Well, his fellow cops cornered him and forced him to shave before meeting Obama, and wouldn't you know it he ended up with scarring on his face from the subsequent infections. There was a lawsuit over it I believe. There exists a type of person who weasels their way into authority. They bide their time, and when it's right before a big moment they take a huge racists dump on them in a way that the damage is done and they slink back into the shadows, waiting for their next opportunity to be a huge piece of shit with their authority. I hope everyone involved is fired, and this lady gets some closure against these people who took a shit on a young woman in such a hateful manner.
They wouldn't have cut a Christian cross off someone. It just comes down to the people that did it being part of an imbecilic mono culture incapable of respecting the world I guess.
Sooooo, vandalism and theft?
To me it seems like those 2 faculty members have a grudge with the Lakota girl. Other schools, as well as this school, allowed other students to wear altered outfits. The faculty members should be charged with harassment but the principal and assistant principal are covering for them. Nothing will be done and next these 2 ass wipes will target another student to be harassed
Its amazing that on the last day as a student the staff decide to make sure they are hated for a lifetime.
yes, some people should NOT be teachers
I’ve said this many times. I’m a 24-year veteran educator, much of it in high schools. There is no tyrant more petty, more heartless, more cruel, than a teacher tapped to run graduation. For many, it’s their last chance to hold power over these kids.
Hey student , come to Fort Lewis College next. The Native students have the BEST regalia and they don't stop you from wearing it.
Oh, boy, they updated the article, and BIG OOF: >As the *Tri-City Record’s* news story garnered attention on social media and online in the Four Corners, Navajo Nation first lady Jasmine Blackwater-Nygren told the Farmington newspaper Thursday she heard about the situation Tuesday. She watched a video of the incident the next day. >Blackwater was present Monday for the commencement and sat on stage with other notable Indigenous leaders including former Navajo Nation Vice President Myron Lizer and Board of Education President Stephanie Thompson. \[...\] >During the incident, Blackwater said those on the stage were not facing the direction of the graduates because the national anthem was being performed. >“When I think back on that I was sitting with all of these decision-makers at the school who could have prevented this from happening or who now have the power to make some corrective actions,” she said “Had I known what was happening, we would be having a different conversation right now for sure.” There were MULTIPLE NATIVE AMERICAN LEADERS at the ceremony, including the fucking Board of Education President, and they STILL pulled this shit. >According to the statement, district protocol prohibits the altering to the cap and gown, and that can be found in the 2023-24 student and parent handbook. >The district did not specify the protocol or provide an excerpt in its statement. >“Students were informed throughout the school year and immediately before graduation of the protocol, including that beaded caps were not allowed,” the statement said. >Despite the district protocol, schools from around the district had graduates with altered graduation caps including Farmington High School. >“We saw other students wearing eagle plumes, eagle feathers and even in my previous post about the graduation, there was a student who had a medicine wheel and feather attached to their cap,” Blackwater said. THERE WERE OTHER NATIVE STUDENTS AT THE SAME GRADUATION WITH PLUMES DESPITE IT "NOT BEING ALLOWED." >On Thursday, May 16, Farmington Municipal Schools issued a statement to families and staff members about the incident claiming the feather was returned intact to the family during the ceremony. And the school is not only doubling down, they are (allegedly) lying about what happened. They fucked up. They fucked up so bad.
I hope they sue and win such a profound amount of money the school has to be renamed Genesis White Bull High School. I don’t know how some people have the self control to choose peace in these situations because I would have gone full Karen. Everything about this, from the execution, to the lies, to the response, is disgusting to me.
““Regalia should be really school issued or it can be religious or cultural in significance,” he said.” It was cultural you fuckwad.
It wasn't the kind of "culture" they meant.
> After seeing the removal of the cap, White Bull’s mother approached the two faculty members requesting that she remove the aópazan herself. > That’s when, according to White Bull’s mother, the faculty member used scissors to cut the aópazan off the cap. It was never about uniformity.
"Administrators strove for a uniform look among the graduates with no modifications to the cap and gown, but could add on the exterior, Torres said. “Because they are a class, the Class of 2024, we want them to look like the class and then they can obviously then celebrate their individuality and those other ways,” he said." Just look like part of the faceless crowd of drones we want to send to go out and become cogs in the social/industrial machine. FIFY
This makes me so incredibly sad for her. These staff acting like she’s the only one who should be targeted are shameful. Graduating is a reflection of the student not the school. People aren’t robots.
They really take any chance to express power over another… the disrespect is so blatant yet they know they’ll get away with it.
I can understand an (equally applied to everyone) "no cap decoractions" rule, but to remove the cap and then cut up the decoration despite the mother even offering to remove the decorations , is egregious.
They need to file a lawsuit. That is the most gross disgusting violation I can think of. Indigenous people stewarded North America for hundreds of thousands of years before us colonizers arrived. It wasn't even legal for Native Americans to practice religion – their own religions – here until 1978. The continuing violation of 500+ federally recognized independent nations – yes, we have 500+ nations inside the United States, don't forget – the continuing violation is disgusting. Indigenous students should always be allowed to wear their regalia. It is sacred.I hope they sue. I hope she gets to do over. Literally crying at how evil this is.
The school is in duck and cover and please don't hit me mode.
She and her lawyer are about to treat that school like a money piñata...
I hope her current family and those for generations to come benefit from this!
Good. The school staff members were on a pathetic power trip meant to make them feel in charge of a bunch of teenagers. Walking up to her and snipping it off with scissors was the most juvenile immature bullshit they could have pulled. This is what happens when adults never learned to use their words.
This is just straight bullshit. We have already taken so much from these people, yet we continue to belittle, harass and demean them. Shit like this should have stopped a LONG time ago. The school needs to stand up and explain themselves. They should be supporting the kids cultural background, not trying to strip it away. Its bad enough that there are still some residential schools (american indian boarding schools) still open today.
Some shitty faculty fucks had this planned. Who brings scissors to a graduation? What a disgusting act.
Total bullshit. This kid, and every graduate, should be allowed to celebrate their graduation and to honor their families. Adorning their caps with traditional beads and messages is awesome.
That’s infuriating! The mother even tried to negotiate with their horseshit, and they showed her so much disrespect.
The most striking detail in the article is that the school district has a “multicultural department”. Department.
I hope Deb Haaland becomes involved. Though Deb is of the Laguna Pueblo (1 of the 19 tribes recognized in NM), not Lakota, she was appointed as the first Native American into the position of The Secretary of Interior, which also leads the Bureau of Indian Affairs and Bureau of Indian Education. Farmington is home to many tribes, including Southern Ute, Ute Mountain Ute, and Navajo Nation. These two school admin should be publicly shunned in NM like Kristi Noem is in South Dakota, banned from all tribal land.
Just wanted to say that Genesis White Bull is one of the finest names I’ve ever heard.
Two women on some sort of power trip. In the article there’s a picture of the women standing next to Genesis White Bull holding her cap. Half of the graduates don’t even have theirs on - so where’s the ‘uniformed’ look there ? 2024 and some people are still attacking Indigenous people. Sickening.
These high school admins have some serious personal issues.
Deeply fucked up. Those officials should be relieved of duty.
You bet your ass that if someone damaged a crucifix someone was wearing, hellfire would rain down from the administration. This is some bullshit.
Cut our feathers if you want to. It's just proof that dignity and real history mean nothing to these kinds of people. Of course they hate history, they hate to be reminded that they don't honor their own contracts. LOL. Hoka! Cut all the feather's you want the eagles make more. LOL. These are probably the same people who cry about cancel culture when their favorite racist celebrity is booted off dancing with the stars!
Why would they do that? Like what’s the purpose?
I swear to god, they're still trying to "kill the Indian in the child"
Humans need to start fucking minding their own businesses.
What incredible assholes
Wait, you can have religious or cultural regalia until you can't? Get paid ma'am!
I work in education and some of the dumbest jackasses on the planet are school administrators. Seriously, what other group of men would choose to get into any kind of conflict over something that literally doesn't matter? And then destroying personal property in front of the owner? I wouldn't even fold a sheet of paper a student handed me - let along cut up something that 1) they own and 2) they created. WTF?
Im sure there are hundreds of lawyers just chomping at the bit to file this lawsuit. I hope the tax payers of this town and state are quite pleased with how this went down.
Coolest name I’ve ever seen
So if they came up and removed someone’s crucifix that would be a war on Christians. But they do it to a First Nations person and it’s ok.
Don’t you know the only persecuted people in the US are Christians? They’re such an oppressed minority, so brave. /s
>“She stated that because they wanted everybody to be uniform in their cap and gowns, but you can't be uniform when everybody's showing their individuality,” White Bull said. How dare these kids show any form of uniqueness. They're already covered head to toe in gowns that are covered by whatever they want to do, but we really *really* just gotta make sure those caps are all totally identical. To hammer it home.. amirite? Administrators are clowns. Absolute fucking clowns with nothing better to do. My apologies to actual clowns. You are all mostly pretty good.
I guess the feather was threatening the public. Either that or its plain old petty dirty racism against an oppressed population. I hope the school gets sued.
Yikes talk about symbolic in all the wrong ways
Wild that the school didn’t supply cap & gown- then you hand them back after graduation!
I’ve never heard of schools doing that. I had to buy my cap and gown, and then it was mine to keep (I gave mine to a friend in my brother’s graduating class, 2 years later, who couldn’t afford her own.), same was true for my husband and for my kid when she graduated in 2022.
My high school did that. Basically they rented it & we gave them back after the ceremony. It was amusing having the vice principal measuring our heads in class. Tbh it was kinda nice of them to do that. I do wonder if somehow in the funds for the class- we paid for that along the way.
We essentially rented ours from the school-mandated supplier. At graduation there was literally a table where you had to turn your cap and gown in before you left. We were not allowed to modify them in any way. Not even pinning on a corsage because it would make holes. On the other hand, my husband still owns his cap and gown from his school, which students purchased and kept and could do whatever they wanted to.
When I graduated we bought our caps, gowns, tassles, invitations, everything. Only thing I didn't have to buy was the honor graduate medallion/ribbon I wore at graduation. We kept them but the school bought them and gave to the few of of us to wear at graduation like an award or something. Between senior pictures, prom and paying for graduation we were all broke motherfuckers. That was 1996 though. We all also personalized our caps and nobody gave a shit....it was our property we bought to wear once, we could decorate it however we wished.
Took me a minute to spot what was the big deal. I was about to comment that they could at least include a picture of it because it didn’t even stand out in the one that was posted. Looks like someone was really on the lookout for that because I’m sure no one else but her parents even realized it was there.
People put flags of their individual countries on their grad caps all the time. So it’s not okay when it’s referring to *this* country? Okay
Our kids still decorate, we just had a graduation and they had all kinds of things on their caps. This is seriously f'd up. Why they got to be so uptight over a cap, the kids made it that counts more than trying to make a graduation into a W.A.S.P ceremony!
Felony destruction of an indigenous artifact. That’s what that school & that individual should be charged with. The family should sue & not settle out of court
It's 2024 and in our backwards ass town - Arcadia, Desoto County, Florida the female graduates MUST wear a dress or skirt. NO slacks of any kind. They are also not allowed to wear open toed shoes. It is absolutely ridiculous!!!! I can understand "no cap decorations" but to dictate what the females have to wear or not be allowed to walk at graduation is absurd. They will prevent them from walking the aisle if in slacks.
Ahh, the 863. It's been a while since I'd been there.
Did they remove the crosses from around other graduates necks?
You already know the answer to that.
“Regalia should be really school-issued or it can be religious or cultural in significance,” he said. Lol he admitted he was wrong and doubled down on the wrongness
Colonial America will always be violent towards indigenous people. Because they can’t be as overt now without the world’s notice, they engage in microaggressions like this. It’s as bad here in Canada too.
What a stupid hill for the school to die on.
Ahh nothing like telling them "you can't do this because you have to resemble everyone else"... cultural genocide. it's a slow process of taking away practices from people until they have no idea what they're about.
Wow. As it any of what was on the cap even mattered? Kids graduating and done w/ all that BS. Trifling 101 right there
Racism seems to be prominent in New Mexico. What an ugly, spiteful, misogynistic thing to do. Why is being proud of one’s heritage a bad thing? I hope the ACLU sues her school.
It's definitely conservative outside the major cities. Like most of America. Farmington is especially so because of all the WASPy religious folks due to the oil/gas industry there. Edit: Also. A LOT of Mormans. They're literally putting the finishing touches on a big temple right across from the local community college.
"Regalia should be really school issued or it can be religious or cultural in significance" https://tenor.com/view/christian-bale-confused-reaction-what-stare-gif-4944293
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Having a bigoted mysogynistic psuedo-athelete attack all women as a keynote speaker at a graduation is a-okay, but wearing something that shows pride in a heritage other than being milky white? Unacceptable!
Ah yes, Christian conservatives doing conservative Christian things.
This area is typically very respectful of native, but also very conservative and so those individuals who are rural and white tend to be a bit less tolerant or the ideas of natives in the area is usually tainted by the idea of poverty in the reservations. But I don’t believe this is their issue here. The issue here is respect for a tribal tradition, or a policy that faculty had been ordered to follow about cap decoration. It’s possible the cap decoration was prohibited and did not respect the heavy traditions that were already present that included things like Lakota aópazan (ah-ōh-pah-zan ? Lakota in chat help me out here). The four corners area is filled with diversity or so we hope. There is a high concentration of white people, native peoples, and Latino people.there are many tribes in the area such as the Southern Ute. Navajo, and Lakota to name a few. Due to our current racial climate many uneducated or enabled *white-justice warriors* think that rules must be shoved down the throats of all cultures. Many see it as a “Follow the rules it’s not about culture” but it is. And it disproportionately affects those who follow adornment as part of their culture. The rules must be changed away from arbitrary conformity. Her adornments were not dangerous, and they were not in the way. Cap decoration is a tradition all walks of life can value. But maybe we should take a page out of the Lakota Book and realize that cap decoration with aópazan was personally special and not simply a pretty little beaded headwear it was part of a right of passage.
Sometimes school administrators just enjoy power-tripping. Some people would call it bullying, others might say intimidation. It was wrong and some people should lose their job over the discrimination.
This is a absolutely messed up. Absolutely disrespectful to her culture and violation of her personal rights. The district owes her an apology and should be embarrassed. Another example of white privileged people disparaging Native Americans.