{"id":15922,"date":"2021-09-20T10:47:45","date_gmt":"2021-09-20T14:47:45","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.indianz.com\/News\/?p=15922"},"modified":"2021-09-20T10:48:22","modified_gmt":"2021-09-20T14:48:22","slug":"flatwater-free-press-lakota-family-fights-school-district-over-hair-cutting-incidents","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/indianz.com\/News\/2021\/09\/20\/flatwater-free-press-lakota-family-fights-school-district-over-hair-cutting-incidents\/","title":{"rendered":"Flatwater Free Press: Lakota family fights school district over hair cutting incidents"},"content":{"rendered":"\"Norma<\/a>
Norma LeRoy, 36 (left) and Alice Johnson, 42, (right) hold their daughters ages 7 and 12 in Valentine City Park in Valentine on May 21. Leroy and Johnson say their daughters\u2019 hair was cut at Cody-Kilgore Unified Schools in 2020. They have filed a lawsuit against the school, saying the hair cutting violated Lakota religious and cultural beliefs. The school\u2019s lawyers have attempted to get the lawsuit dismissed, calling it a lice check and saying they have ended the practice for Lakota children. Photo by Chris Bowling \/ Flatwater Free Press<\/figcaption>\r\n
A school sees a lice check. Lakota people sense centuries of repression.<\/div>\r\n
Monday, September 20, 2021<\/div>\r\n
By Chris Bowling<\/div>\r\n
Flatwater Free Press<\/div>\r\n
flatwaterfreepress.org<\/a><\/div>\r\n

<\/p>\r\nIt\u2019s early summer and a Lakota woman stares into the trees, deep past the leaves and their shadows, her dark eyes misting up. Not far away, her daughters run through the park, a creek-fed oasis in the middle of the arid, amber Sandhills of Nebraska.

<\/p>\r\nNorma LeRoy tries to understand why a school secretary cut her two little girls\u2019 hair without her consent<\/a> in the spring of 2020. And then, days later, did it again. The secretary was checking for lice, LeRoy was told \u2014 lice the mother said they never found.

<\/p>\r\nIt\u2019s a new semester now, and her daughters are pinballing through the park. But LeRoy still feels the weight of those snips of hair, feels like few in this remote region of Cherry County understand what they took from her family. It\u2019s why the 36-year-old Rosebud Sioux has to turn away from her kids, toward the trees, to shield them from her tears.

<\/p>\r\nTo her people, hair is sacred. Cutting it outside Lakota tradition carries consequences.

<\/p>\r\n\u201cHappiness, the goodness, the wellness of life, that takes all that away,\u201d LeRoy said. \u201cAnd so that’s the reason why we, as Native Americans, look at our hair strongly. Because it comes from the spirit world, and it was given to us.\u201d

<\/p>\r\nIn Kilgore, population 79, less than four miles from South Dakota\u2019s Rosebud reservation, hair cutting dredges up dark, generations-long history. Stories of boarding schools where they sheared the jet black hair of Native Americans to make them look more like white people. Like those boarding school kids, LeRoy and her wife Alice Johnson say their little girls \u2014 ages 12 and 7 \u2014 also lost something. They don\u2019t laugh the same way. They don\u2019t play like they used to. And immediately before and after the hair cutting, three of their grandmothers died.

<\/p>\r\nW\u00e0kuza<\/em>.

<\/p>\r\nIt invited bad luck, LeRoy said.

<\/p>\r\n\"Star<\/a>

LeRoy and Johnson\u2019s two youngest daughters hug. The Flatwater Free Press isn\u2019t identifying the children or the school secretary who snipped their hair, per requests and Flatwater Free Press policy. Photo by Chris Bowling \/ Flatwater Free Press<\/figcaption>\r\n

<\/p>\r\nWhen the Lakota mothers offered to bring cultural sensitivity training to the school they got little response, they said. When they explained why cutting hair went against their religion, culture and traditions, they said they were ignored.

<\/p>\r\n\u201cYou don\u2019t get lice if you have clean hair,\u201d LeRoy said the secretary told her.

<\/p>\r\nOther residents say the secretary\u2019s good heart shouldn\u2019t be ignored, either.

<\/p>\r\nGeorge Johnson, a retired rancher in Cody, 15 miles from Kilgore, said he\u2019s known the school secretary\u2019s family for years. Johnson, who now brews small-batch vinegars through George Paul Vinegar, served on the school board decades ago when it hired the secretary.

<\/p>\r\nWithout a principal, the secretary led the school, Johnson said, caring for his kids and many others. She advocated for children whose families couldn\u2019t afford backpacks, coats or boots. Occasionally, the school has trimmed hair to stop the spread of lice, Johnson said. While he doesn\u2019t know what happened in this case, Johnson said if it happened, there was a reason.

<\/p>\r\n\u201c[She] did not do this out of animosity, punishment or anything else,\u201d Johnson said. \u201cShe did it to help the children and keep the school safe. She\u2019s not that type of person, I guarantee you.\u201d

<\/p>\r\n

Complaint: Johnson v. Cody-Kilgore Unified School District [PDF<\/a>]<\/div>\r\nalicejohnsonnormaleroyvcodykilgore<\/a>\r\n

<\/p>\r\nOn May 17, the two mothers filed a lawsuit in federal court in Lincoln against the Cody-Kilgore Unified Schools district. The mothers allege their first amendment rights were violated.

<\/p>\r\n\u201cIt’s definitely resonating with parents,\u201d said Rose Godinez, their attorney with the ACLU of Nebraska. \u201cWhen you send a child to school, you expect them to come back to you safe, not violated, and that’s not what happened here.\u201d

<\/p>\r\nCalls, emails, text messages and Facebook messages sent to the secretary, school superintendent, former superintendent and all six school board members went either unanswered or the person declined to comment. The school\u2019s lawyer, Chuck Wilbrand of Knudsen Law Firm in Lincoln, also declined to comment.

<\/p>\r\nOn July 15, the school and its attorney filed a motion to dismiss the case. School officials were unaware hair cutting was culturally insensitive, the motion reads, and the school\u2019s former superintendent agreed not to cut the children\u2019s hair in the future a little over a week after the parents discovered the first cutting.

<\/p>\r\nBut that did little to appease LeRoy and Johnson, who feel the school violated their family\u2019s culture in the same manner that Native culture has long been violated.

<\/p>\r\n\u201cI just want people to understand that you cannot touch another person’s child,\u201d Johnson said. \u201cEvery religion has beliefs. Every culture has beliefs that we have rules that we live by. And I want people to know that.\u201d\r\n

<\/p>\r\n

\r\n\"leroyfamilydaughters\"<\/a> \r\n<\/div>\r\n
The daughters of Alice Johnson and Norma LeRoy. Photo by Samantha Roubideaux<\/figcaption>\r\n<\/div><\/div>

<\/p>\r\n

Star Women<\/div>\r\nTo understand the importance of hair to the Lakota, you need to know about the star woman.\r\nLong ago, the story goes, a woman sat in the Big Dipper. Lonely, she grew her hair long enough to reach Earth. When she got here, she cut it.

<\/p>\r\n\u201cShe cut it because she needed to come down here to build a life,\u201d LeRoy said. \u201cAnd for her to build that life, she used her hair. And so this is why we say that there are strict restrictions on women with long hair. Because their spirit lives within their hair. And once you cut that, part of their spirit\u2019s gone.\u201d

<\/p>\r\nLeRoy grew up on these stories. She learned the Lakota language, ceremonies and traditions from her grandmother on the Rosebud reservation, where she has lived most her life. Johnson, 42, has family who live on the reservation, but grew up in Kilgore with a Native mother and white stepfather.

<\/p>\r\nThe two Lakota women met on Facebook in 2015 and married a year later. Each had daughters from previous marriages and after marrying had one more. They are raising their four children with Lakota traditions.

<\/p>\r\nBut they are also raising them in a small, mostly white, Nebraska town \u2014 which wasn\u2019t a problem until March 2, 2020.

<\/p>\r\n\u201cI was like, \u2018Wait, who cut your hair?\u2019\u201d Johnson said when her 10-year-old daughter told her about the incident. \u201cAnd then I broke down. I broke down crying and I was like, \u2018How could she take that from us?\u2019\u201d

<\/p>\r\nThe girls told their mother the school secretary did it. When they called the superintendent, he said it was a head lice check. The school\u2019s student handbook doesn\u2019t outline how lice checks are performed.

<\/p>\r\n

\n\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\t\"Lakota\t\t\t\t<\/a>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\n\t
\n\t\t\n\t\t\tLakota couple sues school district for hair-cutting incidents\t\t<\/a>\n\t<\/div>\n\t
\n\t\t\n\t\t\t

A Lakota couple is suing a public school district after a secretary at the school allegedly cut their daughters\u2019 hair without permission.<\/p>\n\t\t<\/a>\n\t<\/div>\n\t

\n\t\t\"Indianz.Com\"\t\tIndianz.Com\t<\/div>\n<\/div>\r\n

<\/P>\r\nIn its motion to dismiss, the school district says while hair cutting is not written policy, \u201c…the School District would sometimes cut a single strand of hair that contained the louse and tape it to a piece of paper to show the family.\u201d The school district said it made steps to remedy the situation, agreeing on March 13 not to cut the children\u2019s hair again. It returned one strand to the family, to burn in accordance with Lakota beliefs.

<\/p>\r\nThe mothers say another daughter, who is autistic, said on March 5 her hair was cut. As the parents checked their 6-year-old\u2019s head, they said patches of hair were missing. The school denies that allegation.

<\/p>\r\n\u201cI didn\u2019t want her to cut it out,\u201d one daughter, who wants to remain anonymous, whispered to a reporter.

<\/p>\r\n\u201cDid you tell her that?\u201d

<\/p>\r\n\u201cNo. She would have just cut it anyway.\u201d

<\/p>\r\nAfter the hair cutting, the two mothers drove to the Rosebud reservation. They went to see Waycee His Holy Horse, a spiritual leader, reservation police officer and LeRoy\u2019s cousin.

<\/p>\r\nWhen he saw their van pull into his driveway, His Holy Horse said he knew something was wrong.

<\/p>\r\n\u201cThat’s very damaging, not just to their physical [health] but to their emotional, psychological and spiritual well being,\u201d His Holy Horse said. \u201cTheir self image is going to collapse.\u201d

<\/p>\r\nThat night, they performed sacred rituals to protect the children\u2019s spirits. When it happened again two days later, the family returned to His Holy Horse.

<\/p>\r\n\u201c[I felt] hurt, betrayal, anger and confusion,\u201d said Lila Kills in Sight, the spiritual leader\u2019s mother who bathed the children with a sponge during the rituals. \u201cWe’re in a new era and I just thought everyone knew about Native people and how we do things.

<\/p>\r\n\u201cThey acted like they didn’t do anything wrong.\u201d

<\/p>\r\n \"Carlisle<\/a>

Native children at the United States Indian Industrial School in Carlisle, Pennsylvania in 1890. For more than a century, Native students\u2019 long hair was routinely sheared at boarding schools. The hair cutting, part of an attempt to assimilate the students into white culture, violated Native religious and cultural beliefs, Native leaders say. Public domain photo<\/figcaption>\r\n

<\/P>\r\n

\u201cKill The Indian, Save The Man\u201d<\/div>\r\nAs the story circulated on social media, raw emotions surfaced. Grandparents shared stories of how their hair had been cut in boarding schools decades ago.

<\/p>\r\n\u201cHaving the seventh, eighth, tenth generation having to go through it again…I mean, it’s just a big eye opener because it’s being re-lived,\u201d LeRoy said.

<\/p>\r\nOn March 3, 1819, nearly 201 years to the day before the children\u2019s hair was cut, the United States signed the Civilization Fund Act. That ushered in an era from 1860 to 1978 when boarding schools nationwide, including in Nebraska, separated Native children from their families, punished them for speaking their language, and often cut their long hair.

<\/p>\r\n\u201c…All the Indian there is in the race should be dead. Kill the Indian in him, and save the man,\u201d Capt. Richard H. Pratt, who founded the Carlisle Indian Industrial School, famously said in 1892.\r\nIn 1884, Christian missionaries came to South Dakota\u2019s Yankton Reservation and took eight-year-old Zitk\u00e1la-\u0160\u00e1 from her mother.

<\/p>\r\n\u201cI remember being dragged out, though I resisted by kicking and scratching wildly,\u201d Zitk\u00e1la-\u0160\u00e1 wrote in 1900 of her hair cutting. \u201cIn spite of myself, I was carried downstairs and tied fast in a chair. I cried aloud, shaking my head all the while until I felt the cold blades of the scissors against my neck, and heard them gnaw off one of my thick braids. Then I lost my spirit…now I was only one of many little animals driven by a herder.\u201d

<\/p>\r\nOn March 9 this year, Johnson, LeRoy and a procession of grandmothers drove to the Cody-Kilgore Unified Schools Board of Education meeting to tell these stories. Board members listened as the women read a letter, spoke, and asked for cultural sensitivity training, say the mothers. When they finished, Adam Naslund, school board president, thanked them for sharing, according to meeting minutes.

<\/p>\r\nThe mothers and the ACLU said the school has since declined to implement cultural sensitivity training. In its motion to dismiss, the school district says it never discriminated, took quick action to prevent future hair cuttings, and argued no further training is needed.

<\/p>\r\nAs for the fact it brings up memories of boarding schools, the motion reads \u201cthis could not be further from the truth.\u201d

<\/p>\r\nBut Sandy White Hawk, an educator and advocate, says these events have a lot more to do with both past and present — touching on themes of assimilation and forced separation from Native culture — than school officials may want to admit.

<\/p>\r\n

\r\n \"Zitk\u00e1la-\u0160\u00e1\"<\/a>
Lakota author and activist Zitk\u00e1la-\u0160\u00e1 pictured in 1898. As a girl, she was forcibly sheared. As an adult, she wrote of the experience: \u201cI cried aloud, shaking my head all the while until I felt the cold blades of the scissors against my neck, and heard them gnaw off one of my thick braids. Then I lost my spirit…now I was only one of many little animals driven by a herder.\u201d Photo courtesy of Smithsonian Institution<\/figcaption>\r\n<\/div>
\r\n \"Henry<\/a>
Capt. Richard Henry Pratt, who founded the Carlisle Indian School and infamously said that, \u201c…all the Indian there is in the race should be dead. Kill the Indian in him, and save the man.\u201d Public domain photo<\/figcaption><\/div><\/div>\r\n

<\/p>\r\nIn 1955, when White Hawk was an 18-month-old baby on the Rosebud reservation, a social worker or church member passed her through the window of a red pickup truck into the hands of her white, adopted family, who later told her the story. She grew up in Wisconsin disconnected from her culture, ceremonies and language. She returned to Rosebud for the first time in 1988 and met her birth family.

<\/p>\r\n\u201cI remember I used to watch their faces…and from time to time they would look away,\u201d remembered White Hawk. \u201cAnd I interpreted that as a sadness in their heart for what had happened. I never shared with them…how awful it was, the situation that I grew up in, because I could see they certainly had a history as well.\u201d

<\/p>\r\nIn Nebraska, Native children are overrepresented in foster care by eight times their share of the population, according to a 2017 report. Nationally, native children commit suicide at 1.6 times the national rate, more than any other race, according to federal data. Native kids in foster care are at even greater risk of suicide.

<\/p>\r\nThe realities aren\u2019t new. In one photo, LeRoy\u2019s own great-grandfather, Jake Kills in Sight, leans toward President John F. Kennedy to talk about the treatment of the Lakota. But, to White Hawk, what happened in Kilgore shows little has changed, she said.

<\/p>\r\n\u201cThe reason that they cut their hair is they knew that they could do it without being punished or disciplined,\u201d she said.

<\/p>\r\n

\r\n