School administrators in Kansas this September violated an eight-year old Native American boy’s cultural and religious freedoms when they required him to cut his long hair to conform to school policy, according to the Kansas American Civil Liberties Union Foundation (ACLU). The boy, a member of the Wyandotte Nation of Oklahoma, had been growing his hair for more than a year after seeing tribal men wear their hair long at the Nation’s annual gathering of the Little Turtles, according to the letter the ACLU sent Girard School District administrators on November 17.
The most-read story on Native News Online this National Native American Heritage Month has not been about celebrating Indigenous heritage but is about how one Lakota elder’s culture was stolen from him in a hospital bed by a pair of scissors. The story started when Arthur Janis (Oglala Sioux Tribe), who resides on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation, began experiencing severe abdominal pains in August.
The UC Health Hospital in Aurora, Colorado on Friday finally admitted that a hospital staff member cut the hair of a 65-year-old Lakota elder Arthur Janis, without his or his family’s permission. The admission comes after two weeks of questioning by the Janis siblings and a week after members of the American Indian Movement (AIM) protested on grounds of the hospital demanding answers. Keith Janis, who spoke with Native News Online on Saturday said the hospital lied to him and his family since they began questioning the health facility about when, why and who cut their brother’s waist-length hair.
The AIM members made local news when they protested on the lawn of the University of Colorado Health (UCHealth) facility last Thursday waving the AIM flag. Janis, who is a traditional Lakota man, wore his hair long for cultural reasons.
An investigation is underway to determine who cut the waist-length hair off a Native American man while he was undergoing medical treatment in Colorado.