Support Tribal Colleges and Students. Please Call Your Elected Officials!

Feb 19, 2025 | Blog, President's Blog

TCUs and TCU students need your voice in Washington. Both Haskell Indian Nations University and Southwestern Indian Polytechnic Institute, the nation’s oldest and only federally operated tribal colleges, are facing an immediate crisis due to the implementation of EO 14210 and the White House memo on hiring freezes.

To help, all you need to do is make a few quick phone calls.

Follow these steps and call TODAY.

    1. Call your elected representative and senators at their Congressional Offices and ask for their Legislative Director. To find your representative and senators, use the USA Gov tool.
    2. Use this script for each call to your representative and senators:
        • Hello, my name is (blank). My zip code is (tell them your zip code) and I am a supporter of tribal college education and the American Indian College Fund.
        • Haskell Indian Nations University and Southwestern Indian Polytechnic Institute, the Nation’s oldest and only federally chartered Tribal Colleges are in a crisis due to the implementation of EO 14210 and the White House memo on hiring freezes.
        • In the last week, each institution lost over 24 percent of its staff – including student safety personnel and instructors.
        • This is preventing the colleges’ ability to provide courses, programs, and student support services—and interfering with students’ completion of a higher education they paid for.
        • I am requesting that Haskell and SIPI be exempted from the hiring freeze and that terminated employees due to EO 14210 be reinstated.
        • If you need additional information, you can contact Moriah O’Brien, the American Indian Higher Education Consortium’s VP of Congressional and Federal Relations, at MOBrien@aihec.org or 703-838-0400.
        • Thank you for your time! I appreciate your help.

Recent Blog Posts

National Day of Racial Healing

National Day of Racial Healing

From Wounded Knee to the civil rights era, American Indians and Alaska Natives are no strangers to either institutional harm or the need to use the system to make their voices heard. On this National Day of Racial Healing, learn from the examples of our elders and ancestors how to stay safe while continually pushing for your rights and self-actualization.

One Student’s Story

One Student’s Story

By Joseph M. (Tohono O’odham Nation)  As a Native person traveling on my own tribal nation and ancestral lands, I never thought I would be questioned about my citizenship. Our land and our Tribe existed long before borders, checkpoints, or immigration agencies. Yet...

Lending an Indigenous Perspective to ICE Raids

In the past year we have witnessed the erosion of the freedom of speech, profiling of civilians, and the right to peacefully protest. What has happened in Minnesota, including the murder of a protestor and the arrest of four Native Americans, is chilling. Native...