A Haskell Indian Nations University freshman student reported a sexual assault last weekend that occurred in Pocahontas, the women’s freshman dormitory.

It takes courage to report a sexual assault anywhere, but a college dormitory is a student’s home away from home, a place where not only they should feel safe, but should be safe.

A couple of questions come to mind :

1.

Was there any staff ( employees ) in the entire freshman girls dormitory that evening?
2.

If not is there a supervisor over all the Haskell dorms whose job it is to make sure that all dorms are safe and secure at all times ?
3.

Since Haskell’s President, Dr.Linda Sue Warner has been detailed to Sipi until January, by Stephanie Birdwell-Bighorn, where was the acting President, Mr.Chris Redman last weekend ? Was he immediately informed of the rape ?

One thing that Dr.Warner always did was walk around the dorms late at night to make sure all was well. She even had other employees who would sign up to help with that. What happened to that program ? Maybe if she had been here and her program still in place this would not have happened or at least help would have been readily available.

1.

By the way what ever happened to the new security that Haskell was suppose to have in place back in August ? Was there any security on duty last weekend at Haskell ?
2.

Does Stephanie Birdwell-Bighorn know what the acting President of Haskell, Mr.Chris Redman’s hours are ? We will assume that since Ms.Birdwell-Bighorn is his boss she does indeed know. For those of you who don’t they are : Tuesday-Friday at noon. In fairness to Mr.Redman ( who apparently did not ask for this assignment ) he does live in Oklahoma, his family is there and so of course he also want’s to be there. However is hard to run a University that is in Kansas from Oklahoma. This would be yet another poor decision from Ms.Birdwell-Bighorn. It is almost not her fault since she was given a job way out of the scope of that of a social worker. It is time for her to look at resigning or at least ask by the Bureau of Indian Education to resign. She and the BIE need to look at what is in the best interest of the students. A term that as a social worker she should at least be somewhat familiar with.

And finally the student who was assaulted will need a lot of support, not just be told to pack up and head home, so that Haskell never has to hear about this incident again ……hopefully this incident will not so easily be swept under the rug.