North Dakota Human Rights Coalition

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A. I. – Interviewed 7/15/04

I started working for American Indian Student Services at a university in North Dakota in August of 1998. I am an American Indian woman myself.

One day, I was walking across campus, coming from the building housing the Native American Student Center, when I heard someone yelling behind me. At first, I paid no attention to the yelling. After it persisted, however, I was compelled to listen and heard, “Come on! You’re Sioux… do you wanna fight?” I turned around to find four Caucasian females in a blue car, two of whom were hanging out the passenger-side windows, yelling at me. The two people on the driver’s side of the car were laughing while the other two shouted their comments. There were several people on the sidewalk with me, all of whom were watching at this point.

The car drove by slowly and the two passengers continued shouting until they were nearly a block away from me. They then pulled into the parking lot of one of the university’s classroom buildings. The only way out of this parking lot was using the driveway the car had entered on. I walked over to the car. All four of the harassers were still sitting in it. I then responded with, “Here I am. I’m not Sioux, but here I am”. My anger was very visible at this time. Each of the people in the car denied the incident, saying, “It wasn’t me”. They then rolled up the windows and sped away.

I talked with the Affirmative Action Officer on campus, who informed me of the option to file a discrimination complaint. I filed the complaint with the Affirmative Action Office and received a letter of response stating that the office was “…sorry that this happened to [me]”. I never heard anything further from Affirmative Action and, as far as I know, no action has been taken to investigate the incident.

Another incident took place at an Expo held in the Union building at the university. The main local newspaper for the city had a representative at the Expo who was passing out copies of that day’s newspaper. As I was receiving my copy of the newspaper, the man said to me, “I suppose you’re a Cherokee Princess”. I took offense to this racist comment and was embarrassed by it.

I discovered that the man was an employee of the newspaper and decided to file a complaint with the company. I filed the complaint, but never received a response from the newspaper company. As far as I know, the man has continued to hold his position with the company, without consequence.

Beyond these incidences, my 15 year old daughter and I are constantly followed by employees in stores, even to this day. One incident in particular occurred in May or June of 2000. I was walking through a drug store and noticed a clerk who followed me every time I moved, until I stopped to look at something. At this point the clerk would stop at the end of the aisle I was on and pretend to fix items on the shelves. To test whether or not I was being followed, I walked around to several areas of the store. Each time I stopped, the same clerk would stop at the end of the aisle I was on and pretend to fix the items on the shelves. After four or five times, I finally walked up to the clerk and inquired as to why I was being followed. The clerk simply denied following me and walked away. Due to the frequency of this type of situation at many stores, I did not feel that filing a complaint would improve my ability to shop in peace; therefore, I did not file a complaint.

(This concludes the narrative provided by A. I. on Thursday, July 15, 2004)

Michael Brown, Jr.

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North Dakota Human Rights Coalition

P.O. Box 1961

Fargo, North Dakota 58107-1961

Phone: (701) 239-9323

Fax: (701) 478-4452

Email: humanrights@ndhrc.org

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