TACOMA, Wash. — A family is standing up for their cultural heritage by taking legal action against the Tacoma school district. This after the district barred Gracie Ray from wearing her tribal regalia at graduation in June.
Tacoma Public Schools investigated and admitted they were wrong, but Gracie's family said that's not enough.
Since her graduation ceremony, Gracie said she's been focused on selfcare which includes traditional Indigenous medicine and interacting with her parrot.
She said she needed time to heal after she was told to remove her Nisqually button blanket during graduation at the Tacoma Dome. She is a member of the Tlingit Haida tribe in Alaska, and the blanket was gifted to her by the Nisqually tribe.
Back in June, she was given a choice. Take it off, or not walk at all. So, being the first person in her family to graduate high school and walk across the stage, she decided it was important. She took her button blanket off and walked, just wearing her black graduation gown.
"I didn't really realize how alone I felt, until after," Gracie said. "I'm not crazy. I'm just saying I wanted more people to put my trust in, but because of what happened I don't really trust authority too much."
Gracie said she failed to finish her associates degree due to the traumatic experience. Her mother, Jeannette Meeks added it has been a challenging four months.
"She's had a lot of emotional regulation issues, there's been a lot of mental health things going on, triggers and some tics developing," Meeks said. "She's on medication, she's seeing a therapist, it's just a lot."
This month, Tacoma Public Schools admitted in its own investigation "the district failed to comply with RCW 28A.600.500" a four-year-old statute that protects an Indigenous students right to graduate in tribal regalia.
The investigation report outlined plans to offer training to staff, and improve communications.
It also said it will issue "progressive discipline to staff who were accountable for the decision to deny Gracie the right to wear her tribal regalia" but what kind of discipline--is confidential.
Gracie recounted specifically—that Lincoln High School principal Karl Hoseth removed her button blanket...and Director of Schools Doug Hostetter gave the mandate to do so. We have reached out to the Association of Washington School Principals, which Karl Hoseth is a part of. However, they declined to comment as they are not a union.
Meeks said all the promises are great-- but what about her daughter?
"That will not buy my daughter a time machine," Meeks said. "That will not put my daughter and my family back on that day, to have her go through her ceremony as she should have, as her peers did when they were wearing their culturally significant items, but my daughter was stripped of hers."
Joe Gehrke is Gracie's family attorney and has notified TPS they will be filing a lawsuit via a tort claim.
"Absolutely, the school district should have known better," Gehrke said.
"Native American, Indigenous students have had years and years of harm that all people of color have experienced and yet in 2024, with that long history of students being marginalized, nobody stopped to think," he added.
By taking this to court, Gracie said she's hoping her experience can be used as an example of what should notbe happening.
"They've had many chances to correct this, learn this, to understand what is right or wrong, and understand the law that has been in place for four years," Gracie said. "I don't think they deserve any other chances."
Both Gracie and her mom agree, nothing will bring back the loss of this once-in-a-lifetime moment.
"$100 million dollars, a billion dollars, nothing is going to make her whole, Meeks said. "That was stolen. They assimilated her, they made her remove her clothing."
They filed their tort claim on October 11th. The school district has 60 days to respond to the claim.
A district spokesperson said in response to follow-up questions about discipline and the investigation in general, "As it relates to the progressive discipline of involved staff, that is not something the district will share in any more detail. Plans for every action outlined in the letter have already begun and all communications have been updated and are present on the internal staff webpages.
We want to extend our deepest apologies to the family and thank them for their patience and participation as we do our best to correct our processes to ensure this situation does not happen again."