She won. Her graduating senior son can wear representative tribal wear at his Elk Grove high school ceremony Tuesday, but she objects to what she views as an unnecessary fight to allow him to do so.
So her fight goes on.
Jessica Lopez objected to school officials initially rejecting her son Louie’s desire to represent his Maidu culture at his Pleasant Grove High School ceremony at Golden 1 Center because school policy barred the adornment of graduation garb with other items. After legal threats, the school has reversed course, and her son will wear an eagle feather representing his Maidu heritage.
Lopez, a past Maidu tribal chairwoman, said despite that outcome, she and the American Civil Liberties Union of Northern California are demanding the district end its graduation dress policy and allow its indigenous students to wear tribal regalia without schools’ pre-approvals, calling the rule “flagrantly unlawful.”
“Tribal regalia — whether an eagle feather or plume, beadwork, basket cap, tribal sash, or other objects — play a unique role, spiritually and culturally, for graduating Indigenous students,” attorneys for the ACLU wrote in a May 8 letter to district superintendent Christopher Hoffman and Pleasant Grove principal Taigan Keplinger. “The district’s current policies interfere with Indigenous students’ protected rights to wear such regalia.”
“It’s really clear that the school’s current policies are in flagrant violation (of state law),” said Tedde Simon, an indigenous justice advocate at the ACLU of Northern California, who addressed district board leaders at their meeting last week. “Elk Grove Unified is the state’s fifth largest school district. It says it wants to be a district welcoming to all people, but it’s not creating an environment where culture is being celebrated.”
District officials disagree and say they follow state law as well as adhere to their dress-code policies.
Elk Grove Unified School District officials, in a statement, said information is provided to students and parents as part of schools’ graduation preparation process that begins in late winter and continues through to graduation.
The lengthy statement Thursday said the policy and its yearly review follow state law and suggested its 2017 policy change allowing for displays of cultural expression on students’ graduation attire foreshadowed the 2018 state law that Lopez and the ACLU accuse Elk Grove Unified of violating.
“As of 2017, EGUSD was one of the first school districts in the state, if not the first, to establish a policy permitting students to adorn their graduation cap and gown with personal expression,” Lisa Levasseur, a district executive director who oversees educational equity and community engagement, stated in part. “This policy has been successfully implemented without incident and to the satisfaction of students and families since 2017.”
Lopez’s son had planned to adorn his cap and gown with Maidu tribal regalia — a mortarboard beaded in a goose pattern, a prominent Maidu creation symbol; an eagle feather gifted by a family friend with its own deep tribal significance; and a ceremonial sash — at his Pleasant Grove High School commencement ceremony.
Lopez, chairwoman of the Konkow Valley Band of Maidu before stepping down from the position earlier this year, and the ACLU say the policy ignores California state law. They allege the district’s pre-approval requirement unlawfully chills free speech and expression; and reopens longheld scars of broken promises, forced assimilation and the erasing of Native American culture.
Lopez said she was not previously made aware that parents needed to file paperwork asking for permission until after an information night in late April for parents of graduating seniors that she was unable to attend. Once she did file the proper forms, Lopez said administrators told her she had missed her deadline to make the request.
District officials, as well as Lopez and civil liberties attorneys, point to Assembly Bill 1248, the 2018 state law enacted in 2019 that states students “may wear traditional tribal regalia or recognized objects of religious or cultural significance as an adornment, as defined, at school graduation ceremonies.” The 2018 law also protects school officials’ authority to prohibit any items that substantially disrupt or interfere with commencement ceremonies.
Levasseur said the policy is reviewed by administrators and school principals at the end of each school year as part of the district’s “continuous improvement efforts.”
“The school’s policy does not override an Assembly bill. There’s legislation in place that protects rights. (Pleasant Grove) cannot pick and choose what is Native culture. That’s not for the school to decide,” Lopez said. “The policy needs to be removed and redacted and the educators need to be educated. No school district has the right to decide that. That’s the family’s choice.”
The Lopez’s case echoes in a 2016 commencement ceremony at Sacramento’s Sleep Train Arena.
A graduating Black teen from Elk Grove’s Cosumnes Oaks High School was escorted out of the ceremony by sheriff’s deputies before he could officially receive his high school diploma after he declined to remove the Ghanaian ceremonial kente cloth he wore over his gown.
Nyree Holmes wore the kente cloth as he walked the stage and met with his principal and administrators, but was greeted by deputies at the bottom of the stage who led him out of the arena.
The scene captured on video drew national attention and widespread criticism of Elk Grove Unified and its policy.
The Cosumnes Oaks student said by wearing the cloth he wanted to feel more connected to his culture. District officials at the time said he violated graduation dress rules that barred all but school-related decorations and adornments.
Elk Grove school officials said students and parents were repeatedly reminded that grads would not be allowed to walk in the procession if they did not comply.
District leaders stopped short of an apology after the 2016 ceremony, saying they “regretted” how events unfolded while insisting there was no intent to discriminate against the Cosumnes Oaks grad. Bobbie Singh-Allen, then the district board’s president, now Elk Grove’s mayor, said she supported a policy review that clarified the differences between accommodations and dress code.
Now, seven years later, Lopez, a fourth-generation Elk Grove resident, said she thinks about her two remaining school-age children and whether they will be affected by the policy. One will graduate high school in 2027; the other in 2031.
“Those years will come in no time,” she said.
“The district says it’s open to reviewing the policy. That’s not good enough,” Lopez said. “Here we are having to tromp along the path of educating the educators. They need to know that they are in violation if they do not protect the rights of these students.”
This story was originally published May 23, 2023, 5:00 AM.
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Darrell Smith is The Sacramento Bee’s Equity Lab reporter covering issues important to the Black community and diverse voices in the capital region. He joined The Bee in 2006 and previously worked at newspapers in Palm Springs, Colorado Springs and Marysville. Smith was born and raised at Beale Air Force Base and lives in Elk Grove.
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