photo by: Josie Heimsoth/Journal-World

Sen. Marci Francisco and Steve Cadue spoke at a community gathering on Friday, February 21, 2025, in regards to the Haskell terminations.

Some were despondent, some were defiant, and some were determined to persevere. But there was one thing all of the students and staff from Haskell Indian Nations University who gathered on Friday night felt: a sense of family.

And “our family took a very hard hit last Friday,” Dan Wildcat, an instructor of Indigenous and American Indian Studies at Haskell, said.

At least a hundred students, faculty and community members filled the fellowship hall at First Presbyterian Church, 2415 Clinton Parkway, on Friday for an urgent community gathering, meant to inform the public of where Haskell stands after dozens of its staff members were laid off the week prior.

Wildcat said that there will be an opportunity for people to donate to the Haskell Foundation – an organization designed to fulfill the unmet needs of Native Americans through direct support, research and partnerships. He said the donations could help meet the university’s service needs that it’s now missing. The foundation’s website says “our current emergency funds cannot meet all the needs we are requesting.”

photo by: Josie Heimsoth/Journal-World

Dan Wildcat gives community members the opportunity to ask questions at a Haskell Indian Nations University community update on Friday, February 21, 2025.

State Sen. Marci Francisco was also in the crowd on Friday, and asked community members if it would be possible to have a spot to donate food on the Haskell campus and if a list that could be started to establish some of the things that students and staff need.

“I want to help Haskell, and I also want to help those individuals who have lost their jobs to make sure we can keep them housed and fed for the next few weeks,” Francisco said.

The Haskell firings occurred as part of the Trump administration’s wave of layoffs, which are intended to reduce the size of the federal workforce, the largest employer in the country. Agencies were instructed to terminate nearly all probationary employees who had not yet secured civil service protection – a move estimated to impact over 220,000 individuals nationwide.

As the Journal-World reported, the Board of Regents for Haskell is seeking a waiver from President Trump’s order, citing legal mandates and the university’s unique position in the nation. Haskell was established in 1884 under the federal government’s treaty, trust and statutory obligations to American Indians and Alaska Natives, the Regents note. Congress has enacted multiple laws, including the Snyder Act and the Indian Self-Determination and Educational Assistance Act of 1975, mandating the provision of educational services to tribal nations.

Dalton Henry, president of the Regents, said in the waiver request that the federal government has a duty to uphold its commitments and that Haskell is a legal obligation. The workforce cuts are undermining treaty and trust obligations, the request said.

Haskell Student Government Association President Angel Ahtone Elizarraras said she was speaking to represent the student body at Haskell. She reiterated that the university didn’t just lose community, they lost their family. And she noted that many of those terminated weren’t new hires, but rather longtime contract workers at the school who had recently switched over to the federal employee track that has a probationary period.

photo by: Josie Heimsoth/Journal-World

Angel Elizarraras, Haskell student government association president, spoke at a community gathering on Friday, February 21, 2025.

“A lot of these instructors that we did just lose were on contract for a long time, (and) from being on contract, they fell in love with Haskell,” Elizarraras said. “They fell in love with teaching these students, and they looked at it as more than just getting to teach.”

“The biggest thing for students right now is to have that sense of family,” Elizarraras said. “That’s what we look for when we come to Haskell. I chose it because I know that I could find family regardless.”

Elizarraras said that she has run into many students crying because the staff that was lost ensured them that they were on the right path. “They just had it in their hearts to speak to us because they see that family in us,” Elizarraras said. “That’s the thing that you don’t get at all universities.”

Aiyanna Tanyan, a student at Haskell, struck a more defiant tone and wanted to push back against the idea that staff and students are scared or worried.

“There is a little bit of that, but there’s also a lot of fight,” Tanyan said. “There are a lot of us that are willing to stand up … There’s a lot of us that are willing to say, ‘you’re not doing this to us.’ This is our education. We did lose professors, but it’s also about losing opportunities.”

“I just want you to know that there are a lot of us that are just willing to be here to stand up and be there for the faculty that we lost, the students that are still here trying to get their education and trying to finish out,” Tanyan said. “Because it is a scary time, but we are still here.”

For herself and others among the 35 probationary employees who were fired, Sierra Two Bulls said it has been a whirlwind of a week. She said people have lost their livelihoods, and there are many parents who have families to feed. Two Bulls said she relied on her job for the benefits it offered.

photo by: Josie Heimsoth/Journal-World

Several people gathered for a community gathering to hear an update on Haskell Indian Nations University after there were several terminations of staff.

“Some of us have chronic illness, like myself,” Two Bulls said. “I’m relying on my job security, my health care benefits and maintaining this invisible disability that I have.”

Two Bulls said she saw other people in the crowd who had been terminated from Haskell, and said she appreciated them all.

“And I know I’m speaking towards Haskell, but across the nation, thousands of employees should not have been terminated,” Two Bulls said. “It was wrongful, unlawful and morally wrong.”

She also added that for students, this is their education, and it will be affected.

“They may say it’s not impacted that much and that you still have staff and faculty there,” Two Bulls said. “That’s right, but at the same time, you know it’s going to impact their education anyway.”

Eric Anderson, an instructor in the Indigenous American Indian Studies program at Haskell, said that there have been many times during his 16 years at Haskell where his morale was very low and where it looked like something horrible was going to happen, but the community has persevered.

“Native people have weathered these storms for a long time,” Anderson said. ” … Resilience, solidarity, strength, activism, protest, pushback — we’ve done these things before. We look at the young people who are here tonight that walk through the hall of Haskell everyday.

“You are the inheritors of those legacies,” he said, “of both the things they have done to try and beat you down and the things you have done for yourselves to rise up.”