photo by: Kim Callahan/Journal-World

The campus of Haskell Indian Nations University is pictured Wednesday, Feb. 19, 2025.

A group of Haskell Indian Nations University students have requested a meeting with President Donald Trump to urge that the Feb. 14 layoffs at the university be rescinded.

“Order the School Year to be completed as planned,” dozens of cross country and track and field student-athletes asked in a written statement to Trump. “We humbly request you review the Future of Haskell.”

The students asked Trump, whose executive order resulted in thousands of federal employees losing their jobs, to meet with them at the White House or at Haskell.

“As a result of Administration decisions made on February 14, one in three instructors and staff were terminated at Haskell Indian Nations University,” the students wrote. “In practical terms, that means, some 520 students, out of 900 are without their instructors — in the middle of the semester. Please help us avoid disruption!”

Meanwhile, Haskell’s president, Frank Arpan, sent a message to campus Monday stating that Haskell faculty who were terminated in the probationary layoffs would be returning to the classroom to finish the semester under an “adjunct contract.” The layoffs left 34 courses requiring an instructor, he said.

Arpan also said that Haskell faculty would be taking on adviser roles for students as Haskell’s Student Success Center was in “temporary abeyance.” As faculty take on more duties, Haskell staff will also have additional daily tasks assigned to ease the burden on faculty, Arpan said.

Because janitorial staff was reduced in the layoffs, Arpan said Haskell was working on a contract for cleaning services in the housing units and larger common areas. He also said that administrative assistants would be shared to help campus offices that had lost their administrative employees.

Nearly 40 Haskell employees, out of approximately 150, were fired on Feb. 14, with their pay also being terminated that day and their benefits within 30 days. Those people included a range of personnel. At least seven people on the list were instructors. Various program specialists were also on the list, as well as custodians, IT workers, administrative assistants and others. Among the fired was Clay Mayes, the cross country coach who had been terminated once before — a termination that a Bureau of Indian Education report found unwarranted — and then later reinstated. Mayes appeared before a congressional hearing last summer to discuss allegations of dysfunction at Haskell, and students have made special pleas for him to be reinstated a second time.

The Board of Regents for Haskell is also seeking a waiver from Trump’s order requiring the massive layoffs across the federal government, citing legal mandates, including treaty obligations and the university’s unique position in the nation as an institution devoted to Indigenous higher education.

The Haskell Foundation, which has been raising emergency support funds for those affected by the layoffs, had raised $127,765 as of Tuesday, toward a hoped-for goal of $350,000.

A community group has scheduled another public meeting to discuss and provide information about the situation at Haskell. That meeting is scheduled for 5:30 p.m. Friday at Haskell Auditorium, 155 E. Indian Ave.