photo by: Josie Heimsoth/Journal-World

President of the Haskell Foundation's Board of Trustees Bo Schneider gives an update on the efforts of the organization on Friday, March 7, 2025.

The federal bureaucracy that surrounds Haskell Indian Nations University doesn’t often give straight answers. But this week, Dan Wildcat said, it gave hundreds of community members a clear sign that they’d been heard.

Fourteen clear signs, in fact.

“This is, to me, the best part of the story so far,” Wildcat, an instructor of Indigenous and American Indian Studies at Haskell, told a crowd of about 100 people gathered at Haskell Auditorium on Friday. “They rescinded the action for 14 of the Haskell employees that were terminated. They’ve been given their federal jobs back.”

Sure enough, it was confirmed on Friday that those staffers laid off pursuant to a Trump administration order were being rehired — although they were given a very short turnaround, until the end of the day on Friday, to accept. Wildcat said it wouldn’t have happened without the activism that the community had shown over the past few weeks. He said he’d spoken with someone familiar with the rehirings, who said the credit should go to those who reached out to their local representatives.

“Everyone who sent a phone call, wrote a letter, who talked about the incredible injustice, you had a role in this,” Wildcat said.

photo by: Josie Heimsoth/Journal-World

Dan Wildcat speaks at an advocacy meeting for Haskell Indian Nations University on Friday, March 7, 2025.

Friday’s gathering was the second community meeting in the past few weeks to update people on the situation at Haskell ever since the layoffs on Feb. 14, in which nearly 40 employees, including seven instructors and multiple coaches, were let go. This one was more upbeat than the one last month, when students lamented the loss of beloved instructors and former staff members wondered how they would feed their families and pay their medical bills.

But Wildcat urged everyone to remember on Friday that only a portion of the people who were terminated had their jobs back. The rest of them still needed help, he said, and even more uncertainty lay ahead.

President Donald Trump, Wildcat emphasized, has told federal agencies to prepare plans for large-scale worker layoffs and for consolidating programs. The Associated Press reported that agencies had been told to submit their plans by March 13, and that this could involve laying off more employees than in the initial wave last month and even eliminating positions altogether. It’s expected that there will be extensive changes on how the government functions.

There were no specific targets for cutbacks, but Trump had said as an example that the Environmental Protection Agency could lose 65% of its staff.

Wildcat said he hasn’t seen anything that says Haskell will be immune from this order. But he said that Haskell needed to be exempted from this so-called “reduction in force,” because it would be very costly and disruptive to the small school’s operations.

“It’s really just hard when you hear about the lives that are being disrupted, and you know the pain, the struggle and everything that these actions are causing,” he said. “So that’s kind of the next thing on the horizon … That’s something if you want to continue to make some phone calls or send some messages, that could be helpful at this time.”

In the meantime, Wildcat and the other speakers at the gathering said there was work to be done to support people and keep the university running right now.

“We’re taking everything in stride and we’re trying to not let (the) fear of what the next blow might be dominate our lives, because we got students to serve right now,” Wildcat said.

The Haskell Foundation has stepped in to raise money for some of the immediate needs of the university, and it has so far raised $157,016 of its $350,000 fundraising goal. Bo Schneider, president of the foundation’s board of trustees, said the fundraising work would continue in hope of extending temporary contracts for to some employees, ensuring programs stay funded and intact, and providing emergency assistance to discharged employees and students affected by the changes, among other things.

Kasey Flynt, development director of the Haskell Foundation, said people can also sign up to volunteer with the foundation on its website, haskellfoundation.org, or by emailing kflynt@haskellfoundation.org. Flynt said she would look at the skills and interests the volunteers brought to the table and organize everything from there.

For the students, it’s been a rough couple of weeks. There have been moments of solidarity and even triumph — like the conference tournament victory of Haskell’s women’s basketball team, whose coach, Adam Strom, stuck with the team despite being laid off.

But just as common have been the moments of grief and loss.

“I lost two teachers to this … and faculty I went to for support and that I learned from,” said Tyler Moore, a senior. “It’s heartbreaking whenever you walk through campus and faces that are usually bright, beaming smiles are just sad.”

So, a heartbreaking time. But also a time when a community raised its voice and made a huge difference in 14 lives — and perhaps, if the advocates keep it up, many more.

“When the people were getting fired, at the same time, people were getting fired up,” Moore said. “We were getting together. We were making spaces … Students were organizing protests. We all made this space, and I couldn’t be more proud of Haskell. I cannot be more proud of this community.”

photo by: Josie Heimsoth/Journal-World

Tyler Moore, a senior at Haskell Indian Nations University, speaks at a community meeting regarding the university on Friday, March 7, 2025.