Education | Opinion

Delphine Red Shirt: Scandal shuts down program for Indian youth

Thursday, October 8, 2015

Delphine Red Shirt. Photo by Rich Luhr / Flickr

GEAR UP: Where money for Indian children goes, corruption follows
By Delphine Red Shirt

I lay awake at night thinking about the corruption and greed around the GEAR UP shut down and scandal.

It is a scandal because ordinary people like me are shocked and upset because of the behavior of those who were receiving millions in the name of our wakanyeja (Lakota children) in the state of South Dakota. GEAR UP is an acronym for Gaining Early Awareness and Readiness for Undergraduate Programs.

It is a competitive grant program of the U.S. Department of Education that seeks to increase the number of low-income students who are prepared to enter and succeed in post-secondary state and local community education partnerships. It provides services in high-poverty middle and high schools.

The key words are high-poverty and low-income kids like those on the Pine Ridge reservation and other reservations in South Dakota. Where in the past year suicide rates among middle and high school age students were alarmingly high for that specific population of children; all while millions of dollars of grant money was being awarded by the federal government through the GEAR UP program. One wonders if this money had been used for them, for their benefit, to help them gain hope in themselves and in their own futures if things have been different for these children.

Indian students participate in a GEAR UP program in South Dakota. Photo from Facebook

I lay awake worried, because I work with college age students, often at the most selective colleges and universities, who come from Pine Ridge and other reservations. And, I also come from a low income middle-school and high school both located on the Pine Ridge reservation. I know the challenges those in poverty face.

I recently came face to face with those memories again as I worked to help my daughter adapt as a freshman in college. I remember arriving as a freshman on the college campus and having one suitcase with everything I owned in it. I had enough clothes for one week and very little cash with no access to any account of any kind except what the tribe gave me in financial aid at the college.

No one from my family ever visited me, my first year in a pre-med program; no one had the money to travel to Denver, a place I selected because of the proximity to home. Low-income means exactly that, real struggles, real hardships, and no margin to fall back on and often, no one to turn to.

In many ways, for us, history has a way of repeating itself: where government money meant for Indians/Lakota seems to end up somewhere else other than where it was to go, for the benefit of the most impoverished. Historically the federal government has, always from a distance allocated us funds for our own good (for the Lakota as stipulated by treaty in exchange for land).

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The distance that money travels from Washington to Pine Ridge is great. What looks like a million dollars in Washington may end up to be a few dollars, if we are lucky, by the time it reaches Pine Ridge. Along the way, as it has throughout history, corrupt and greedy hands grab those dollars first, often for personal gain before they, as in the case of GEAR UP, reach our children. It’s enough to make anyone cynical.

Two summers ago, I spoke to a roomful of GEAR UP participants at the School of Mines in Rapid City. I was invited by a former student who was teaching science in the summer program. Looking back, I realize that I never met, in a formal way, any administrator of the program except briefly. All of my interaction was with the students, the “hopefuls” who wanted, only to gain a foothold into the world of higher education as a way out of their worlds that are often severely limited by poverty in a land of plenty.

I arrived on campus at the School of Mines early and stood by at the gymnasium door as logistics for the day were planned for the students. When I was finally introduced I spoke from the heart. I looked out at the students and decided to tell my story, my middle school and high school experience on the reservation. That day I told them my experience and they listened, and “got it” and many came up to talk to me afterward: if I can make it, so can you. My favorite memory is the tall high school student who shook my hand, his large frame overshadowing mine; his large and firm handshake honoring me and him.

Afterward I did not receive a thank you from any administrator or any adult. But, I was given a red GEAR UP t-shirt as a thank you. I had traveled far and had by chance been able to see the large group and eat lunch with them later that day and as I walked away, I was very proud of them.

Now I lay awake at night worried that for us, we Lakota, nothing seems to change much: the funds that are supposed to help our children line someone else’s pockets. While the well-fed, well-dressed and well-housed recipients of those millions are able to afford anything they could possibly want, including large fleets of cars purchased by those funds, according to some news reports, and while politicians on the payrolls of some of the nonprofits that were supposed to benefit our children, cover their trail, like always.

Lakota mothers like me lie awake at night worrying about our Lakota children and their future.

(Delphine Red Shirt, redshirtphd@gmail.com)