Kamryn Yanchick had hoped to decorate her graduation cap with a beaded pattern to honor her Native American heritage, but her Oklahoma high school administrators refused permission. As an alternative, Yanchick wore beaded earrings to her 2018 graduation. A bill allowing public school students to wear feathers, beaded caps, stoles and other culturally and religiously significant objects was vetoed by Oklahoma Governor Kevin Stitt, but Yanchick, who belongs to the Seminole Nation of Oklahoma and is a descendant of the Muscogee Nation, hopes the legislation will be reintroduced. She believes that being able to express cultural identity at a graduation ceremony is significant without needing permission from a non-Native person. Yanchick is now a Native American policy advocate and has worked as an intern for the American Civil Liberties Union of Oklahoma.
Native American students often face challenges wearing their tribal regalia at graduation ceremonies, causing controversy and prompting legislation in nearly a dozen states, such as Arizona, Oregon, South Dakota, North Dakota, and Washington.
Most students and their families view the regalia as an important means of communicating their cultural and community connections, and some regard the limitations against wearing them as cultural insensitivity that calls for legal intervention, rather than leaving schools to set their uniform rules. High schools have various approaches to enforcing rules on forms of wear like sashes, flower leis, beads, feathers, and other articles of religious or cultural significance. Last month, Oklahoma Governor Kevin Stitt vetoed a bill that would have permitted public school students to wear such regalia, prompting a Native American high school graduate to sue her school district for forcing her to remove a feather from her cap during a ceremony last year.
Groups advocating Native American rights, such as the Native American Rights Fund frequently hear about similar disputes and grievances.
Jade Roberson, who graduated from Edmond Santa Fe High School, the same as Yanchick, also faced restrictions on her desires to wear a beaded cap and a large turquoise necklace above her gown. Roberson, who is of Navajo descent, found it almost not worth the hassle to request permission to wear the items above her graduation gown. Her friend, who was only able to wear an eagle feather, had to speak with several counselors, receive a letter from the Cherokee Nation on the feather’s significance, and consult the principal to obtain approval.
The experience was such a hassle that Roberson and her friends chose to wear items under their graduation gowns instead. Roberson believes this experience is a metaphor for the barriers that Native Americans face in cultural expression.
Adriana Redbird, a student at Sovereign Community School in Oklahoma City, will be able to wear a beaded cap and feather given to her by her father during her upcoming graduation ceremony because the school allows regalia. Redbird explained that wearing such items during graduation is quite meaningful for Native American students and pays tribute to their cultural heritage. However, until recently, most schools in the state did not allow students to wear any form of cultural regalia during graduation.
Though a veto to allow students to wear such garb in public schools was issued by the state’s Republican Governor, Kevin Stitt, several tribal nations, like the Cherokee Nation and Muscogee Nation, called for an override of the veto. The bill’s sponsor, Rep.
Trey Caldwell, representing the ancestral lands of Kiowa, Apache, and Comanche Nations, asserted that the regalia was essential for Native American students’ sense of pride and could foster meaning during their transition to adulthood. Meanwhile, Kamryn Yanchick, a former high school graduate and advocate for Native American policy, argued that students should not have to be activists to celebrate their identities or communicate them during graduation.