First Nations Journal

Haskell Indian Nations University is in a state of crisis due to the Higher Learning Commission HLC “accredited on notice” warning of loss of accreditation.  The HLC loss of accreditation is due to the failure of the federal government trust responsibility governance as cited by First Nations Journal and documented by Haskell Faculty Senate and Haskell Board of Regents letters of March 9 and May l respectively.   For more than a decade, Haskell Indian Nations University (HINU) has been trapped in a cycle of federal mismanagement, instability, and neglect.  First Nations Journal has repeatedly warned that the Higher Learning Commission’s “Accredited on Notice” action was not a routine compliance issue—it was a full-scale crisis, created by the very federal trustees Department of the Interior (DOI), Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA), Bureau of Indian Education (BIE) charged with protecting Haskell students, faculty and mission. 

Click to access Public-Disclosure-Notice-Haskell-Indian-Nations-University.pdf

Now, the truth is documented.  The Haskell Faculty Senate and the Haskell Board of Regents have submitted formal letters to Congress that confirm—in detail the systemic failures FNJ has been reporting.  These letters are not opinion.  They are not speculation.  They are evidence and they expose a federal trust responsibility in collapse. 

The Faculty Senate and Board of Regents describe a university operating under:

• Chronic leadership turnover
• Federal interference in academic and administrative decisions
• Missing or inaccessible documentation
• Retaliation against employees and students
• Obstruction of internal reform efforts
• A complete absence of stable governance

These are not isolated incidents.  They are the predictable outcomes of a federal trustee—DOI/BIA/BIE—that has failed to uphold even the most basic fiduciary trust duties.   

FNJ has said for months that the HLC loss of accreditation crisis was created by the trustees.  The Haskell letters now prove it. 

The HLC’s action was years late—the crisis was visible long before 2026.  The Faculty Senate and Board of Regents make clear that the HLC’s June 25, 2025, “Accredited on Notice” status is not a sudden development.  The conditions that triggered it have existed for years:

• no functioning governing board
• no long-term planning
• no stable leadership
• no financial transparency
• no institutional autonomy
• no protection for whistleblowers

Congress is now on notice.  If Congress fails to act, the failure becomes Congress’s, not Haskell’s. 

• The Haskell letters shift the burden of responsibility
• The trustee has been exposed
• The evidence is documented
• The beneficiaries have spoken
• Congress must now decide whether it will uphold or abandon its trust responsibility

The Haskell trustees should be suspended—their authority is the source of the crisis.  FNJ has already argued that the federal trustees should be suspended from authority over Haskell.  The letters now provide the factual basis for that position:

• The trustees obstruct HLC investigations
• The trustees retaliate against students and employees who report violations
• The trustees control all documentation and can suppress evidence
• The trustees have created the conditions that led to accreditation risk

A trustee that creates the crisis cannot be trusted to fix it.  Suspension of trustee authority is not radical.  It is necessary.  The purpose of the Haskell Indian Nations University Improvement Act (S.2140) highlights the neglect of the Haskell trustees in fulfilling fiduciary trust responsibilities to Indian people.

https://www.congress.gov/bill/119th-congress/senate-bill/2140

The Department of the Interior cannot claim ignorance.  The Haskell trustees DOI/BIA/BIE can claim incompetence.  Haskell trustees are not qualified to be trustees of a university.  The Haskell Faculty Senate’s March 9 letter and the Haskell Board of Regents’ May 1 letter are now publicly communicated, widely circulated among campus stakeholders, and transmitted to congressional offices.  These are not private grievances.  They are formal institutional warnings issued by Haskell’s own governing bodies—warnings that describe federal mismanagement, structural dysfunction, and the failure of the trustee agency to meet its legal obligations.    

The DOI has not denied a single word.  For an agency with ultimate authority over Haskell’s governance, operations, and public communication, silence is not neutrality.  Silence is complicity.  When the trustee agency receives two independent corroborating statements from Haskell’s Faculty Senate and Board of Regents—each documenting federal failures that directly harm Indian beneficiaries—and chooses not to respond, not to correct the record, and not to engage, that silence becomes an acknowledgement.

The DOI has offered no rebuttal, no clarification, no corrective action, no public assurance to the students, faculty, tribal nations, or Congress.  The silence functions as an admission.  DOI’s non-response to the Haskell letters describe; withholding communication, avoiding accountability, and leaving Haskell beneficiaries defenseless.  

The Haskell Faculty Senate and Board of Regents have done what federal law and HLC accreditation standards require; they documented the failures.  They communicated them.  They elevated them. Now, the burden shifts to the Department of the Interior.   

First Nations Journal calls on Congress to act meaningfully in intervention and uphold genuine federal fiduciary trust and treaty responsibility to Indian beneficiaries. 

                                                         FIRST NATIONS JOURNAL

M’gwitch 🪶

Steve Cadue

Kickapoo Nation Kansas