American Indian students protest barbed-wire fence
Monday, February 21, 2005 7:52 AM PST
By Associated Press
Printable version
E-mail this articlePORTLAND, Ore. (AP) -- Barbed wire was removed from the top of an 8-foot-high fence being built around an American Indian school after protests by students and tribal members who said it felt like an attempt "to keep the animals" from escaping.
The fence, which construction crews began setting up this week, was ordered by the federal government to improve campus safety and define the grounds at the Chemawa Indian School, a boarding school that serves tribes across the country.
But Larry Byers, the school supervisor, said he was not told about the barbed wire atop the fence before the crews arrived. It was being removed on Friday before weekend celebrations of the school's 125th anniversary.
Nedra Darling, a Bureau of Indian Affairs spokeswoman in Washington, D.C., said the barbed wire was originally meant to be temporary.
"It will be taken off," Darling said Friday. "We certainly understand the sensitivity of this."
After construction on the fence began, student leaders hastily gathered 250 signatures Wednesday night and presented them to the school advisory board Thursday. The board then unanimously approved a resolution protesting the fence.
It will be sent to the BIA with letters from students and parents.
"They're not fencing the problems out. They're destroying the morale of the students by fencing them in," said board member David Harding, a tribal judge on the Coeur d'Alene reservation in Idaho and a Turtle Mountain Chippewa.
Scott Arnoux, a Blackfeet Indian from Browning, Mont., told the Statesman Journal of Salem that the fence sends the wrong message to students.
"They're going to think it's a disciplinary school," Arnoux said. "Like they are trying to keep animals in here from escaping."
The school in Salem was the target of a federal investigation after a 16-year-old student died in a holding cell in December 2003. Police determined she had been drinking.
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