Genesis White Bull, a Hunkpapa Lakota of the Standing Rock Sioux tribe, was sitting at the Farmington High School graduation ceremony with her graduating class on Monday, when two school faculty members approached her during the national anthem to confiscate her graduation cap.

The cap was beaded around the rim with an aópazan – the Lakota term for a plume or feather worn in the hair – attached to the top of the cap.

Genesis White Bull had walked with her cap to her seat but it wasn’t until the ceremony started that the faculty proceeded to remove the cap from her, she said.

After seeing the removal of the cap, White Bull’s mother approached the two faculty members requesting that she remove the aópazan herself.

That’s when, White Bull’s mother said, the faculty member used scissors to cut the aópazan off the cap.

As the Tri-City Record’s news story garnered attention on social media and online in the Four Corners, Navajo Nation first lady Jasmine Blackwater-Nygren told the Farmington newspaper Thursday she heard about the situation Tuesday. She watched a video of the incident the next day.

Blackwater was present Monday for the commencement and sat on stage with other notable Indigenous leaders including former Navajo Nation Vice President Myron Lizer and Board of Education President Stephanie Thompson.

In a Facebook post Wednesday, Blackwater expressed solidarity with Native students who choose to wear traditional tribal regalia or objects of cultural significance.

“I am deeply disappointed that this happened at a school where we have many Navajo and Native graduates,” she said in the post. “I hope the school learns from this experience and can take corrective measures.”

Before Monday, the family had set time to pray for the graduate’s aópazan and placed it on her respectfully, Brenda White Bull, mother of the graduate, said in an interview with the Tri-City Record after the commencement.

“That’s part of our culture, when we reach a milestone in our life, we as Lakotas decorate, do our beadwork and place our plume on them,” she said.

While on the field that night during the interview, White Bull’s mother said she would not take the aópazan out and described what happened as something that sparked trauma inside her.

“I don’t appreciate them taking her plume, taking her beaded hat. That’s all cultural,” she said. “The moccasins she wore was cultural, so if they took her beaded hat away and left her beaded moccasins on. Why do they pick and choose?”

Tri-City Record spoke with FHS Principal Rocky Torres on Monday night, but he declined to comment or confirm what took place with White Bull.

When asked about any sort of protocol for the ceremony, he said expectations were in place about regalia.

“Regalia should be really school-issued or it can be religious or cultural in significance,” he said.

Administrators strove for a uniform look among the graduates with no modifications to the cap and gown, but could add on the exterior, Torres said.

“Because they are a class, the Class of 2024, we want them to look like the class and then they can obviously then celebrate their individuality and those other ways,” he said.

Brenda White Bull said an assistant principal at Farmington High School, Shira Isaacson, gave her a similar answer.

“She stated that because they wanted everybody to be uniform in their cap and gowns, but you can’t be uniform when everybody’s showing their individuality,” Brenda White Bull said.

She referred to other students walking that night with leis, carrying a child and other adornments around the elastic cap, setting them a part from the crowd.

After the ceremony concluded and families left the stadium, graduates could pick up their diplomas at the Scorpion Arena. It was there that White Bull’s beaded cap was pulled out from a lost-and-found box, with some of the beadwork damaged.

“When we bead, we pray, those are prayers we put into those beadworks,” she said.

Farmington Municipal Schools and Farmington High School have not reached out to the White Bull family, Brenda White Bull said.

The district also declined an interview request from the Tri-City Record with Superintendent Cody Diehl and the multicultural department.

On Thursday, May 16, Farmington Municipal Schools issued a statement to families and staff members about the incident claiming the feather was returned intact to the family during the ceremony.

According to the statement, district protocol prohibits the altering to the cap and gown, and that can be found in the 2023-24 student and parent handbook.

The district did not specify the protocol or provide an excerpt in its statement.

“Students were informed throughout the school year and immediately before graduation of the protocol, including that beaded caps were not allowed,” the statement said.

Despite the district protocol, schools from around the district had graduates with altered graduation caps including Farmington High School.

“We saw other students wearing eagle plumes, eagle feathers and even in my previous post about the graduation, there was a student who had a medicine wheel and feather attached to their cap,” Blackwater said.

The district said staff members were following district guidelines and acknowledged the situation could have been handled in a better way.

“The district is also committed to exploring the addition of a district policy that allows for additional appropriate cultural elements in student attire, including graduation caps and gowns,” the statement said.

According to the district, it values the graduates and their cultural backgrounds and appreciates the support and understanding of the community as it continues to work toward honoring culture and individual expression at Farmington schools.

George Hardeen, communications director for the Navajo Nation Office of the President, has reached out to the FMS superintendent, Blackwater said.

“I do understand that members of the 25th Navajo Nation Council are in contact with this family,” she said.

Blackwater’s involvement in the FHS commencement was on her own behalf and was not expected to approach the microphone, she said.

During the incident, Blackwater said those on the stage were not facing the direction of the graduates because the national anthem was being performed.

“When I think back on that I was sitting with all of these decision-makers at the school who could have prevented this from happening or who now have the power to make some corrective actions,” she said “Had I known what was happening, we would be having a different conversation right now for sure.”

Coming from her background in Indian Law, Blackwater mentioned the CROWN Act signed into New Mexico law in 2021 that protects those against discrimination based on their hair or cultural headdresses.

“Whereas in Arizona, it’s not written as an anti-discrimination law,” she said. “It’s written, as schools cannot prohibit a student from wearing these items.”

Graduation ceremonies in Native communities hold a level of significance just as the ceremonies and prayers done by families for their graduates, Blackwater said.

“I definitely think that there needs to be a coordinated effort as to what happens next and I think that has to be aligned with what the family wants to do, what they feel comfortable doing,” she said.

This article was updated with a correction of a photo caption on May 17. Upon graduation, students switch the tassel on the mortarboard from the right side to the left.