Tribal Regalia

Tribal regalia are culturally and religiously significant items of dress that some Indigenous people wear during traditional ceremonies, activities, and important life events, including rites of passage like graduation. Tribal regalia can include a broad range of clothing items, accessories, and adornments.

In the context of high school graduations, some Indigenous students have sought to wear beadwork or an eagle feather on their graduation caps. Others have worn traditional moccasins and leggings, sealskin caps, or leis. Tribal regalia can also include hairstyles such as hair worn long or in braids.

Various state and federal laws protect public school students’ rights to wear tribal regalia at graduation ceremonies.

Utah and ten other states (Alaska, Arizona, California, Kansas, Mississippi, Montana, North Dakota, Oregon, South Dakota, and Washington) have laws that specifically protect the right to wear tribal regalia. Unfortunately, some of these protections apply only to specific items of cultural regalia or only to certain Indigenous students (e.g., those enrolled in a federally recognized tribe).

Religious freedom laws in many states may offer another source of legal protection for public school Indigenous students who believe that wearing tribal regalia is an integral part of their religious or spiritual practice.

The First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution may also provide protections, especially where public schools allow other types of adornment for graduation caps and gowns but prohibit tribal regalia.

In addition, a federal law known as Title VI prohibits federally funded schools (whether public or private) from discriminating based on race, ethnicity, or national origin. Even if schools do not intend to discriminate, if their policies disproportionately and negatively affect students of a particular race, ethnicity, or national origin, they will likely be considered discriminatory. School policies that prevent Indigenous students from wearing tribal regalia may violate this law.

Indigenous students should be allowed to wear their tribal regalia at graduation. There are ways to fight these unfair restrictions.

Send a Letter to Your School.

Utah is one of eleven states with laws explicitly protecting the right to wear tribal regalia. You may be able to use our self-advocacy letters to inform school officials of state law and demand that they follow it.

Self-Advocacy Letter Template on Right to Wear Tribal Regalia for Students in Utah.

Disclaimer: This letter is provided for informational purposes only and is not meant to be legal advice or establish an attorney-client relationship.

File a complaint with the U.S. Department of Education.

Title VI prohibits all federally funded public or private schools from enacting policies disproportionately and negatively affecting students of a particular race, ethnicity, or national origin. If your school has a policy that prevents Indigenous students from wearing tribal regalia, the policy may violate Title VI. 

Only the U.S. Department of Education can enforce Title VI, but students and parents can file a complaint here.

Indigenous students have suffered horrific persecution by the government and education system through numerous attempts to separate Indigenous children from their families and tribes and deny them their cultural and religious expression rights. For example, through the 1960s, thousands of Indigenous children were forcibly removed from their families and communities to distant, government-run “boarding schools,” where their Indigenous languages, beliefs, and identities were suppressed. These abusive practices created long-lasting, intergenerational trauma in Indigenous communities, which is still felt today.

Denying Indigenous students the right to wear tribal regalia further deprives them of their cultural and religious heritage in the name of assimilation. This adds to the violence and oppression that these students and their communities have already suffered.

Graduation ceremonies are especially meaningful for Indigenous students, who, because of this persecution, have long faced structural barriers and discrimination in educational settings and are thus much less likely to graduate from high school than their peers.