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- By Jenna Kunze
Members of Congress on Tuesday, July 23, held a joint hearing in Washington, D.C. to address decades of mismanagement, nepotism, and toxicity at Haskell Indian Nations University, a federally-operated school in Lawrence, Kansas.
The two-hour hearing, convened by two House subcommittees, featured testimony from current and former leaders of Haskell, the Office of Inspector General (OIG), and Assistant Director of Indian Affairs Bryan Newland.
At the center of the discussion was a 80-page investigative report, made public in April 2024, that the Bureau of Indian Education (BIE) conducted into the school in response to dozens of student allegations in 2022. The scathing investigation found that the university ignored student reports of sexual assault and abuse, as well as bullying and intimidation by Haskell administrators.
During the hearing, Rep. Harriet Hageman (R-Wyo.) read aloud part written testimony from a Haskell student, detailing the student’s sexual abuse and the school’s non-responsiveness.
“I experienced family, educational, and personal struggles during my time at Haskell, for which I received no support,” the student’s testimony read. “In many cases, Haskell administrators exacerbated or created challenges.”
The student wrote that she shared a suicide attempt in class, but her “cry was not heard.”
“She goes on to explain that she was drugged, raped, and held against her will for 15 hours off campus,” Hageman said. “She took initiative and approached the university, but received no support from Haskell administration. Instead of being assisted, she was kicked out of Haskell twice due to a low GPA, and she was denied her Pell Grant. To say that this is unacceptable is an understatement.”
Congressional members emphasized that, while the 2024 report is what caused them to convene a meeting, Haskell’s issues are longstanding and continuous.
The recent report is strikingly similar to a 2018 report by the Officer of Inspector General that painted a grim picture of Haskell. Both reports substantiated claims that a Haskell employee sexually assaulted a student and university officials ignored complaints of misconduct. The 2108 report also highlighted claims that employees felt bullied and intimidated by Haskell’s president, and that the school’s administration inaccurately reported crime statistics.
Additionally, lawmakers pointed out, lawsuits and complaints against Haskell date back until at least 2007.
According to testimony from Matthew Elliot, the Assistant Inspector General for Investigations for the U.S. Department of the Interior Office of Inspector General (OIG), his office has received 68 complaints from Haskell since 2018. Of those complaints, OIG opened five investigations, initiated one review, referred 32 of the complaints to the Bureau of Indian Education, and referred one complaint to the Assistant Secretary of Indian Affairs. The remaining 29 complaints weren’t followed up on because they were duplicative, or lacked “actionable information,” he said during the hearing.
“We're here today to really understand what's been going on,” Rep. Melanie Stansbury (D-N.M.) said on Tuesday. “So that Haskell can be turned into a place where students feel safe, where they can bring their whole selves to school, and the culture of this institution, from the top to the bottom, can be reformed.”
Lawmakers expressed that, more concerning than the report itself was the Bureau of Indian Education’s lack of response to the dozens of letters requesting assistance.
According to the investigative report, beginning in 2021 student allegations of sexual abuse, theft, and bullying were reported to the athletic department, relayed to the school president, the BIE Director, and the Assistant Secretary-Indian Affairs, Bryan Newland, but “did not get a response or any indication their issues would be addressed.”
Congressional members repeatedly questioned Newland about his lack of response to the students.
Newland said that often, people get his email wrong, and he doesn’t remember ever receiving the student’s letter. He added he could not find it when looking back through his email in preparation for Tuesday’s hearing.
“I don't recall receiving those letters directly,” he testified. Newland said he learned of the report in June 2022 and, in response, “took disciplinary or personnel actions against 10 members of our staff and contractors.”
Newland added that BIE also hired a Campus Advocate Coordinator position, updated its sexual misconduct policies, and elevated the pay scale for the role of the University President “to attract more talented candidates to lead Haskell and to promote stability in its leadership.” In the last eight years, Haskell has had six presidents.
Several lawmakers asked Newland why the 2022 investigative report, which was completed in January 2023, wasn’t made public until a year later, and only after a lawsuit.
In response, Newland said that he, too, is frustrated with how the report’s release was handled.
“I could give you all of the bureaucratic language, but the bottom line is that our team did not handle that as well as we should,” he said.
“I have to say,” Congressman Mark Takano (D-Calif.) said on Tuesday, “I'm frankly appalled by the lack of transparency and accountability that BIE schools are subjected to.”
After a recess, Congress members heard from former Haskell president Ronald Graham, Emily Martin from the National Women’s Law Center, and Haskell cross country coach Clay Mayes.
Graham and Mayes both accused the Haskell administration of retaliating against them, terminating them after each reported staff criminal and sexual assault claims to higher ups at the BIE.
In 2022, after Mayes reported the sexual abuse of a student athlete by another coach and a claim of government property theft to his superior, he was barred from contacting his athletes for five months, and eventually fired. Mayes was offered his position back in April 2024, on the day after the investigative report was published, he said.
“There seems to be a code of ‘Don’t respond to any reports.’” Mayes said. He said a group of employees at Haskell—most of them related, with the first hired in 1981—began a pattern of hiring family members. The group has bred a culture of silencing complaints and retaliating against those who raise them, Mayes testified.
In response to a question about the decades of mismanagement at Haskell, Newland pointed to the same “clique” among staff at the school.
In total, Mayes said he made 25 reports via email to his Haskell supervisor, 16 reports to BIE specialist, and six requests for meetings with previous president. “I got zero responses,” he said.
“There have been a lot of challenges on clear leadership expectations at Haskell for many years,” Newland said. “I believe because of the high turnover in Haskell presidents and leadership over the years, that has allowed some of the problems with these factions, or these cliques on campus, to fester, which creates problems like [what] has been outlined with Coach Maye’s experience.”
Newland said he believes that creating stable leadership with a clear vision is the first step to “getting our arms around that problem.”
Rep. Stansbury said that the testimony on Tuesday made clear the toxic work environment at Haskell has not yet been addressed, despite BIE’s attempts at remediating the problem through new policies, a new president, and a campus advocate position.
“We have two issues here,” Stansbury said. “We've got a toxic work culture that needs to be fixed inside the administration and faculty of the school, and we have an accountability follow-up issue with BIE. It is unacceptable that the federal agency who provides oversight for this university did not respond to complaints from a faculty member. That cannot happen.
It's clear that whatever's happening in the interface between the university and the BIE that it's broken, and there's no accountability happening there.”
Members of Congress also drew a connection to Haskell’s lack of accountability and poor leadership standards to the news that, just last week, a former Haskell regent, Lester Randall, was federally indicted on four counts of felony assaults resulting in substantial bodily injury.
Rep. Burgess Owens (R-Utah) concluded the hearing with a statement that Congress is committed to holding Haskell faculty and the BIE accountable for correcting decades of issues that came at the expense of student safety, education, and wellbeing.
“We have a culture that's been going there for decades, and it's because there are people in power who do not care about these kids,” he said. "That's not going to happen anymore. Just know, there's going to be accountability."
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