With PeaceWorks KC’s focus on justice and peace, our Annual Meeting March 9 allowed time for watching and pondering “Haskell Persists!”—https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x8oRm7aIj64. The students at Haskell Indian Nations University created the video after President Trump signed an executive order for probationary staff to be dismissed at federal universities in mid-February, affecting more than 30 Haskell faculty and staff.
An NPR story on March 10 noted the re-hiring, by then, of 12 of those dismissed, and a lawsuit opposing the firings (https://www.npr.org/2025/03/10/nx-s1-5321991/haskell-indian-nations-university-basketball-coach-doge-lawsuit). The NPR story said, “Between the layoffs and nearly a dozen ‘induced resignations,’ Haskell lost more than a quarter of its staff in February, according to a new lawsuit filed in federal court.”
Cris Mann and her husband, Dennis Gallie, had attended a Haskell students’ rally a few days before the PeaceWorks Annual Meeting. Cris, interim chair of the PeaceWorks Board until she shifted back to being a Board member during the meeting, introduced the Haskell video. She said the students demanded that the government abide by treaties with the Indian Nations. During the rally, said Cris, one student would call out, “1884,” the year Haskell was begun, and other students would reply, “140 more,” honoring the now 140-year-old institution.
