photo by: Kim Callahan/Journal-World

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

The Journal-World has learned that at least some probationary employees who were fired from Haskell Indian Nations University last month during a nationwide purge of federal workers will be reinstated with back pay as early as next week.

Details were sparse Thursday afternoon, but a source familiar with the situation said more than a dozen employees who work with students had been invited back and that their personnel records would not be negatively affected. One of those said to be invited back was Clay Mayes, the embattled cross-country coach who has been terminated twice, both times without cause, according to a student group who lobbied for his reinstatement and a federal report that described his first termination as unwarranted.

A person in Haskell’s Human Relations office who was said to be making telephone calls to staff would neither confirm nor deny the report, instead referring inquiries to a Bureau of Indian Education spokeswoman in Washington, D.C., who did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Nearly 40 Haskell employees, including seven instructors, multiple coaches, administrative and custodial workers and others, were abruptly terminated on Feb. 14, with their pay ending that very day and benefits only lasting another 30 days. The fired employees represented about a quarter of Haskell’s workforce of around 150, creating what some described as insurmountable disruptions.

The firings, at the behest of the Trump administration, were among tens of thousands nationwide and prompted outrage in Lawrence, where Haskell has been since the 1880s, evolving from a boarding school meant to strip Native Americans of their culture into a four-year university that celebrates that culture — one of only two such federal institutions in the United States, along with the Southwestern Indian Polytechnic Institute in Albuquerque, New Mexico.

Since the firings, Haskell students have staged protests and have asked to meet with President Donald Trump, while the university’s Board of Regents has requested a waiver from the federal firings, citing legal mandates, including treaty obligations and the university’s unique position in the nation as an institution devoted to Indigenous higher education.

Transparency around the situation at Haskell has been in short supply. Haskell employees have been instructed to filter all requests for information through the BIE in Washington, D.C., which dispenses few details about the school. The Journal-World has reached out to the BIE with numerous questions, including what specifically prompted the reversal of the Feb. 14 order and what, if any, assurances will be made to employees who agree to come back.

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 noted that the university was shifting personnel and duties to fill gaps — for example, having faculty do student advising instead of Haskell’s Student Success Center, which he said was in “temporary abeyance,” and having offices share administrative personnel and having janitorial work contracted out.