![]() In his veto message, Stitt said allowing students to wear tribal regalia should be up to individual districts. “To pay tribute and take a small part of our culture and bring that with us on graduation day is meaningful,” she said. When Adriana Redbird graduates this week from Sovereign Community School, a charter school in Oklahoma City that allows regalia, she plans to wear a beaded cap and feather given by her father to signify her achievements. “I think it is such a metaphor for what it is like to be Native.” “It was such a hassle for him that my friends and I decided to just wear things under our gown,” said Roberson, who is of Navajo descent. She said a friend was only able to wear an eagle feather because he spoke with several counselors, consulted the principal and received a letter from the Cherokee Nation on the feather’s significance. When Jade Roberson graduated from Edmond Santa Fe High School, the same school attended by Yanchick, she would have liked to wear a beaded cap and a large turquoise necklace above her gown. This week in Oklahoma, a Native American high school graduate sued a school district, claiming she was forced her to remove a feather from her cap at a ceremony last spring. ![]() ![]() Groups like the Native American Rights Fund hear regularly from students blocked from wearing eagle feathers or other regalia. Advocates argue the laws are needed to avoid leaving it up to individual administrators. High schools, which often favor uniformity at commencement ceremonies, take a range of approaches toward policing sashes, flower leis and other forms of self-expression. Disputes over such attire have spurred laws making it illegal to prevent Native American students from wearing regalia in nearly a dozen states including Arizona, Oregon, South Dakota, North Dakota and Washington. Yanchick, a citizen of the Seminole Nation of Oklahoma and descendent of the Muscogee Nation, said she hopes the legislature tries again.īeing able to “unapologetically express yourself and take pride in your culture at a celebration without having to ask a non-Native person for permission to do so is really significant,” said Yanchick, who now works for the American Civil Liberties Union of Oklahoma.įor Native American students, tribal regalia is often passed down through generations and worn at graduations to signify connection with the community. Kevin Stitt, a Republican, would have allowed public school students to wear feathers, beaded caps, stoles or other objects of cultural and religious significance. Yanchick settled for wearing beaded earrings to her 2018 graduation.Ī bill vetoed earlier this month by Oklahoma Gov. Whether she could was up to her Oklahoma high school. When Kamryn Yanchick graduated, she hoped to decorate her cap with a beaded pattern in honor of her Native American heritage.
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