Notes From Indian Country: St. Francis Indian Mission in SD in the hot seat

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Tim Giago (Nanwica Kciji) 9/7/2006 © 2006 Native American Journalists Foundation, Inc.

There is a lawsuit just filed that hopes to take up the slack from an earlier lawsuit that failed.

The lawsuit filed on August 7, 2006, in the Seventh Judicial Circuit in the County of Pennington in South Dakota by Attorney Gregory A. Yates of Encino, California is against St. Francis Indian Mission and Rosebud Educational Society, Wisconsin Province of the Society of Jesus, Diocese of Rapid City and Sisters of St. Francis in Denver, CO.

The plaintiffs are Lloyd One Star, Kerwin Eagleman, Ralph Eagleman, Lawrence Ford, Marian Sorace, Noah One Star and Antoinette (One Star) Miller, all former students at St. Francis Indian Mission located on the Rosebud Reservation in South Dakota.

Mr. Yates intends to bring closure to a suit filed several years ago by Jeffrey Herman and Gary Fischer that attempted to sue the Catholic Church for alleged abuses of Indian children. A judge in this case ruled that this suit had exceeded the Statute of Limitations as set down by law. Yates intends to circumvent this ruling with his suit.

When Herman and Fischer filed their lawsuit, I wrote that I was apprehensive because as a longtime observer of Indian law I understand its complexities and I didn’t believe either Herman or Fischer had the background or the knowledge to bring a lawsuit that so many other attorneys had shied away from over the years.

Jennifer Ring, director of the American Civil Liberties Union of the Dakotas that Indian law is highly specialized. “It involves a lot of areas of the law that are not commonly taught in law schools in the United States. If you look at the Constitution, one of the powers that the federal government has is, very specifically, the right to regulate affairs dealing with Indian tribes and that is not something that applies to any other minority group. Then you go on to the treaties, interpretation of the treaties, and jurisdictional issues and you will find that there are a lot of rules that apply to Indian country that do not apply anywhere else,” she said.

The plaintiffs charge St. Francis with attempting to strip them of their Native American family values, religious beliefs and culture in an effort to Americanize them. The also charged “Defendants’ agents affiliated with the St. Francis School directed, allowed and/or executed customs, patterns, policies and practices of sexual and physical abuse by failing to supervise, monitor, discipline and otherwise protect Plaintiffs, ultimately leading to the abuse alleged herein.” [snip] Native American Times