A federal jury has ruled against the Grand Gateway Hotel in Rapid City, S.D.

With just one exception, Retsel Corporation and the Grand Gateway Hotel were found to have discriminated against Native Americans.

South Dakota Public Broadcasting’s C.J. Keene was in the courtroom.

In total, tens of thousands of dollars of compensatory and punitive damages were awarded to the people denied service to the hotel.

Additionally, that discrimination suit means NDN Collective will receive its request of $1 from Retsel.

In total, Retsel is now liable for six discrimination claims connected to the events of 2022.

Regarding the assault claim against Sunny Red Bear, Retsel Corporation was found l

iable for Connie Uhre’s assault against her.

Uhre was also convicted in criminal court for the incident.

For Nicholas Uhre, the current operator of the Grand Gateway Hotel, his two defamation claims against NDN Collective were thrown out by the jury.

The final claim regarding an illegal nuisance was found in favor of Uhre and the hotel.

That nuisance included a light projection displaying an “eviction notice” on the side of the hotel and the months-long protest that took place just off hotel property.

In total, NDN Collective is ordered to pay $812 for that claim.

The decision by the jury came after over nine hours of deliberation and represents an end to the three-year legal battle.

Gambell is one of two Native Villages located on St. Laurence Island, in the middle of the Bering Sea. (Photo: Walter Holt Rose / Wikimedia)

Dancing and drumming are essential to Siberian Yup’ik culture, passed down by ancestors.

Josie Ungott and Janissa Noongwook are dancers and high school students in the village of Gambell on St. Lawrence Island in the Bering Sea.

They talked to their teacher about what the cultural tradition was like in different generations.

Noongwook: “We have Chris Petu drumming for some students in a classroom in Gambell. He’s been teaching this Native dance class for over a year now.”

Ungott: “Petu has been a teacher for so long. He’s welcoming and kind to all of us students. He says dance was much more strict in the past.”

Petu: “Only dancers to a song was if it’s that composer’s daughter or wife, those were the only ones that dance.”

Noongwook: “He says he probably wouldn’t have been a drummer if he had grown up in the old days because his parents weren’t drummers. Petu tells us back then, women would practice dance moves. But if a dancer made a wrong move, the older women would throw a shoe at them.”

Petu: “They had a big pile of shoes once a little wrong move, a woman threw at the girl.”

Noongwook: “Petu tells us a sad experience about missionaries coming here last century and saying what our people couldn’t do. That drumming, dancing, hunting, eating walrus, and speaking our language was evil.”

Petu: “It was instilled deep in their heart that this was evil, that drums and church don’t mix.”

Ungott: “Petu tells us when the younger ministers started working, they realized it wasn’t evil and came and apologized. As the years went by, the traditions slowly became less strict. For about forty years now, everyone started dancing to any song.”

High school students Noongwook and Ungott wrote and produced this story with help from Alaska Public Media health reporter Rachel Cassandra.

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