Students join in national protest

By Courtney Dunne, Editor-in-Chief

The House of Peace and Justice (P&J) is doing its part to help national issues.

Izzy Taylor, a member of P&J, organized a bake sale on campus to raise funds for the Sacred Stone Spirit camp, which consists of people protesting the Dakota Access Pipeline.

The Dakota Access Pipeline is an oil pipeline that was approved by the Army Corps of engineers and the Sioux Tribe in North Dakota is claiming they did not go through the proper procedures to dig up the land the pipeline will go into.

The Sioux Tribe filed a lawsuit against the Army Corps of engineers earlier this year. The lawsuit alleges that the Corps violated multiple federal statutes, including the Clean Water Act, National Historic Protection Act and National Environmental Policy Act when it issued the permits.

According to the legal defense fund for the Sacred Stone Spirit Camp funding page on FundRazar, the Camp of the Sacred Stones is located between the pipeline’s proposed crossing of the Missouri River and the water intake valves for the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe. The Camp was established on April 1 to protest the Dakota Access Pipeline.

One of the biggest concerns the Sioux people have is the contamination of the Missouri River if the pipeline ever leaks. The Missouri River is Sioux’s main source of water as well as an area of great cultural significance that holds sacred site and burial grounds.

“We are having a fundraising bake sale to bring awareness to the Dakota Access Pipeline that is going to cut through ancestral lands of the Sioux nation and potentially dirty their water,” Taylor said.

The Dakota Access Pipeline has been a source of controversy across the country and has recently been in the headlines as people have been arrested for protesting the Dakota Access Pipeline.

Photo courtesy of Shailene Woodley's Facebook page.
Photo courtesy of Shailene Woodley’s Facebook page.

One of the most recent arrests made was Divergent star Shailene Woodley, who was arrested for trespassing with other protesters at the access pipeline’s site. She streamed the whole arrest and claimed they were arresting her because she was famous.

“The Dakota Access Pipeline is putting indigenous issues on the map that haven’t really been discussed,” said Emma Nuiry.

As of Oct. 18, the Legal Defense Fund has raised $511,531 for their cause. Their goal is to raise $700,000 for the Legal Defense Fund, which has been running since Aug. 9.

“It is important to decolonize our perceptions around the U.S. and realize that we are on taken land from indigenous people and 500 years later, we are still doing … It doesn’t just affect the Sioux nation, it affects all of us,” said Taylor.

The idea for the bake sale originally stemmed out of Columbus Day. Taylor said Columbus Day is not necessarily something to celebrate since Columbus came in and took the lands that indigenous people already inhabited.

Following the bake sale, Taylor and other members of P&J continued to raise awareness, was arrested Oct. 10 while protesting the Dakota for the Dakota Access Pipeline in a water rites ceremony, which brought water from their local bodies areas and resulted in an interfaith ceremony where they prayed over the water and then poured all the water into the Delaware Run.