A federal lawsuit filed by yet another George Soros-funded group highlights how the Trump administration’s swift crackdown on wasteful government spending is enraging leftists whose coffers have long been replenished with taxpayer dollars. The case involves a tribal college in Lawrence, Kansas called Haskell Indian Nations University (HINU) with an enrollment of 901 and a long history of financial mismanagement and corruption. The school has been plagued by a multitude of scandals including payroll fraud, millions in unaccounted for donations as well as allegations of bullying, theft, sexual assault, workplace harassment and other abuses. More on that will be covered later in this story with documents obtained by Judicial Watch involving “the premier tribal university in the United States” despite a dreadful graduation rate of just 41%.
As part of the Trump administration’s effort to reduce the federal workforce and cut back on unnecessary spending, Haskell’s budget was slashed along with another college that serves Native American students. About a quarter of the university’s staff was laid off, including custodians, professors, and others, though some were subsequently reinstated. The school also postponed its welcome back pow-wow, was forced to close the student success center and financial aid was delayed for students, all members of federally recognized tribes. This month a coalition of tribal nations and students sued the federal government over the budget cuts, alleging that the loss of staff violates tribal rights to prioritize the fields of study in schools, native students’ rights to receive an adequate post-secondary education and the Bureau of Indian Education’s (BIE) obligation to maintain school health and safety. The staff reductions also occurred without notifying or consulting tribal nations, which the plaintiffs claim is required by law.
The complaint was filed in United States District Court for the District of Columbia by the Native American Rights Fund (NARF), a leftwing advocacy group whose cases include trying to stop the Keystone XL pipeline between Canada and the United States, native voting rights, fighting the development of public land and Indian mascots the group claims negatively affect the way native youths view themselves. NARF has received at least $1.75 million from Soros’ Open Society Foundations (OSF) since 2019, including $1 million in 2022. Just a few weeks ago Judicial Watch reported that a different Soros-funded nonprofit sued the Trump administration for freezing the funds of another charity, also bankrolled by the leftwing billionaire, that receives millions of dollars from the beleaguered United States Agency for International Development (USAID). Soros spends a fortune to promote his radical globalist agenda and, incredibly, American taxpayers have partially financed the ventures. A few years ago Judicial Watch published a special report on the financial and staffing nexus between OSF and the U.S. government, documenting tens of millions of American taxpayer dollars that have gone to the Hungarian philanthropist’s programs both domestically and abroad.
The HINU funding cut appears to be part of a much-needed plan to finally curb wasteful government spending, which has run amok in recent years. In congressional testimony last summer, the university’s former president, Dr. Ronald J. Graham, told federal lawmakers about the ongoing fraud, waste, abuse, and criminal conduct at the school and the retaliation he suffered for reporting it. Millions of dollars in donations were unaccounted for, half a million dollars in contracts mismanaged and hundreds of instances of payroll fraud in which employees, including professors, were paid for jobs they did not perform. The BIE, the government agency responsible for providing tribes with quality education, quickly retaliated and opened an investigation into Graham for reporting the pervasive corruption and fraud at its premiere university. The former HINU president also received death threats after reporting the wrongdoing, was abruptly terminated without any notice and ordered off the campus within an hour.
Last year the BIE’s umbrella agency, the Department of the Interior (DOI) published a scathing report after investigating allegations of harassment, bullying, nepotism, theft, sexual assault, fraud, waste and abuse and drinking on the HINU campus. The document contains redactions throughout its 80 pages, but enough information is available to illustrate the serious problems that prevail at the tribal university in northeast Kansas.
