be a strong community. We ….
be a strong community. We want our schools to be safe places where all children feel accepted and open to learning together and about each other.”
“Indian Education for All is a resilient tool for Indigenous peoples,” said Angeline Cheek, ACLU-MT Indigenous justice organizer. “But if it is not implemented, the genocide and forced assimilation of Indigenous peoples continues even though we are the original inhabitants and caretakers of this continent.”
“Montana’s Indian Education for All Act is a unique but straightforward requirement that never seems to get implemented fully or correctly,” said NARF Staff Attorney Melody McCoy, who has worked in the area of Indian education for over 30 years. “Fifty years seems long enough for the State to have had to figure this out, but here we are having to go to court again to get it right.”
NARF Staff Attorney Samantha Kelty agrees. “Since Montana made this promise to citizens in 1972, thousands of students have graduated from public schools having never received the innovative education promised,” Kelty said. “The State has an obligation to implement and manage this public mandate and must live up to its responsibility to do so.” “Students in Montana public schools have the unique privilege of having Indian Education for All as a constitutionally- mandated part of their curriculum – but Montana state officials are failing to fulfill this constitutional guarantee,” said Mark Carter, staff attorney with the ACLU’s Racial Justice Program. “We’re going to court to compel state officials to fulfill their constitutional obligation to ensure that all students have access to education about Indigenous peoples’ culture and history.”
To ensure that the state agencies and officials implement and comply with the Constitution and statutes in the future, the class-action lawsuit asks for declaratory and injunctive relief such as the creation and monitoring by the state, in consultation with Montana tribes, of minimum IFEA reporting and compliance standards. The lawsuit, Yellow Kidney, et al. v. Montana Office of Public Instruction, et al, was filed in Montana district court
