Chronology of American Indian History

P

of employment discrimination. Two Hopi and
one Otoe applied for work in the mine but were
turned down because Peabody agreed, in its lease
agreement with the tribe, to show Navajo (Dineh)
preference in hiring. The Navajo object to being
named as a codefendant in the suit, stating that
their sovereignty renders them immune. The 9th
Circuit Court of Appeals disagrees and maintains
that the Navajo can be sued by a federal agency.

March 17

The General Services Administration agrees
to review Indian murals.
Addressing complaints from American Indian em-
ployees of the Environmental Protection Agency
(EPA), the General Services Administration un-
dertakes a review of six murals in the EPA’s Ariol
Rios Building. Critics of the murals call their ste-
reotyped images of Indians offensive. The murals,
painted in the 1930s, depict Indian men scalping
white women and murdering white men. Elizabeth
Kronk, a Chippewa attorney advocating the murals’
removal, says “to have to be faced with these de-
pictions every day is horrible.” In 2000, the murals
were covered (see entry for NOVEMBER 2000), but
the curtains were removed at the beginning of the
Bush administration.

March 21

Student shooter kills nine people and
himself on the Red Lake Indian Reservation.
Jeff Weise, a 17-year-old student at Red Lake High
School in Minnesota, enters the school armed
with several guns. In a shooting spree, he kills a
security guard, a teacher, and five students. Weise
then exchanges gunfire with the police, backs
into a classroom, and fatally shoots himself. Au-
thorities later discover that, before arriving at the
school, Weise had killed his grandfather and his
grandfather’s partner. The incident is the deadliest
school shooting since 15 people were murdered at
Columbine High School in Littleton, Colorado,
in 1999.

Floyd Jourdain, chairman of the Red Lake

Ojibwa Nation, says “Our community is devas-

tated by this event. We have never seen anything

like this in the history of our tribe.” The next week,

his teenage son Louis will be arrested for conspiring

with Weise. In November 2005, Louis Jourdain will

plead guilty of threatening interstate communica-

tions; in exchange, the court will drop two more

serious charges against him.

“We could remember March 21

as a day of tragedy, but I choose

to remember it as a day when

love overtook us and buoyed us

Pallbearers carry the coffin of security guard Derrick

Brun, one of seven people shot by student Jeff Weise

at the high school on the Red Lake Indian

Reservation. (AP/Wide World Photos)