photo by: Journal-World File

A sign at the entrance to Haskell Indian Nations University is shown Friday, Aug. 5, 2016.

While it’s still unclear whether a report on extensive crimes alleged to have taken place at Haskell Indian Nations University actually exists, a nonprofit is now saying that letters from the top official at the federal agency that oversees the university seem to confirm its existence.

The Journal-World has obtained the two letters, sent by Bureau of Indian Education Director Tony Dearman in January 2023. The BIE oversees Haskell under the U.S. Department of the Interior. In the letters, Dearman delegates authority to propose and execute disciplinary actions based on the findings of an on-campus investigation — and Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility, a government watchdog nonprofit that sued the BIE last year, is claiming those letters corroborate the existence of an investigative report the agency has been trying to uncover.

As the Journal-World reported, PEER in July 2023 sued the BIE in an effort to obtain an investigative report detailing sexual assaults, embezzlement, theft and other crimes allegedly committed by Haskell employees — allegations that students claim were investigated in the second half of 2022. By November, the BIE had released more than 500 pages of documents to PEER, but the agency — and even a group of students that had submitted their own FOIA requests — said that wasn’t the report it asked for in the first place and instead pertained to a different investigation entirely.

The documents PEER and the group of Haskell students received last year are related to an investigation conducted by the U.S. Postal Service between Feb. 24, 2022, and May 6, 2022, then submitted in mid-July. But both groups’ FOIA requests were for an investigatory report compiled in the latter half of 2022 and submitted in January 2023.

Dearman’s letters were sent to Cherie Poitra, the associate deputy director at the BIE’s central office, and James Bartlett, a supervisory human resources specialist with the BIE, in the same month that the relevant investigation purportedly wrapped up. Dearman’s letters, dated Jan. 26, 2023, granted Bartlett the authority to take appropriate actions related to the findings of an “administrative investigation conducted to look into allegations and complaints” regarding Haskell, including proposing disciplinary actions, demotions and reassignments and more. Poitra, meanwhile, was designated the “deciding official” on all suggested disciplinary actions.

About a month before PEER made its FOIA request, a group of Haskell students sent a letter to U.S. Secretary of the Interior Deb Haaland asking that the report be made public. A source familiar with the students’ claims directed the Journal-World to Bartlett, who said questions about whether an investigation had taken place would be responded to as part of the Journal-World’s own FOIA request.

A response letter from PEER to the BIE’s legal representation sent earlier this month argues that those letters from Dearman confirm the conclusion of the investigation the nonprofit sought to learn more about in its initial FOIA request.

“It is clear that the investigation which PEER requested had been concluded by January 2023 and concerned a wide range of allegations, as described in the PEER FOIA suit,” the letter reads.

PEER’s litigation against the BIE is still ongoing, according to federal case filings. In one of the more recent filings entered Jan. 12, a status report from the defendant’s legal team, the BIE maintains that the report it released in late 2023 is “fully responsive” to PEER’s FOIA request. The same filing requests permission to file another status report by March 1.